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First and Second Attempts at City Planning by a 
Seventh-Grade Boy 



CHARACTER 
DEVELOPMENT 

A PRACTICAL GRADED SCHOOL COURSE 



CORREIATING 
LESSONS IN GENERAL MORALS. CITIZENSHIP 
DOMESTIC SCIENCE, PHYSICAL TRAINING 
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE AND RECREATION 



BY 

CHARLES KEEN TAYLOR, B.S., M.A. 

Director of the Experiment in Moral Education developed in the 
Philadelphia Scliools; Lecturer on Educational Psychology 



PHILADELPHIA 

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
1913 






Copyright, 1913 
THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO. 






0)CAA858373 



To 
LIGHTNER WITMER, Ph.D. 

To whom the author 
owes much 



PREFACE 

It is refreshing in the war of words about moral 
education in pubhc schools to read about things 
already done. Mr. Taylor is not a theorist nor 
a speculator nor a debater. His long experience 
with children and his practical approach to them 
from several angles convinces him that moral 
training, the real and actual manufacture of a 
good boy or girl, is a large and many-sided under- 
taking. A child is a mass of struggling potential- 
ities. Heredity has poured into him the instincts 
and impulses of the ages; nature has endowed 
him with mind and body; environment and teach- 
ing are playing their streams of efforts upon him. 
Yet he is a unit, a Bergsonian universe of move- 
ments, an organism growing and changing every 
minute. How blessedly easy would moral train- 
ing be if only the child were really as simple an 
entity as the older disciplinarians thought him! 

This new conception of the child and the breadth 
of moral training, Mr. Taylor has caught and 
developed. He sees that a child grows; he sees 
that morality must grow, too. I believe this 
book will serve to forward the new and larger 
view of moral education. It will appeal to all 

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6 PREFACE 

of us who see visions, and satisfy the rest of us 
who want practical demonstrations. I pray 
with all my heart it will aid in the emancipation 
of children from the barbarisms visited upon them 
in the name of morality, and will bring into their 
lives the freedom and happiness their essential 
and natural righteousness deserves. 

Arthur Holmes. 

State College, Pa. 



CONTENTS 

Preface, by Arthur Holmes, Ph.D., Dean of the 
General Faculty of the State College of Penn- 
sylvania 

5 

Introduction 

Meaning of the Term ''Character Development" — 
Relation of Moral Training to Physical and 
Mental — Moral Education in Schools — Duties 
of Director of Moral Education — Scope of 
Work — Function of Present Volume .... 11 

Chapter I 
Children of Six and Seven Years 

The Value of School — Punctuality — Obedience — 
Respect — Cleanliness — "Mine and Thine" — 
Truth — Courage — Mayor, Governor and Pres- 
ident — Kindness to Animals — Pictures ... 19 

Chapter II 

Children of Eight Years 

Manners — CleanUness — Honesty — Care of Things 
— Kindness to Animals and Their Rights — 
Fairness — Consideration — Self-control — 
Hand-work — Games and Plays 44 

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8 CONTENTS 

Chapter III 

. Children of Nine Years 

Courage, Trustworthiness, Patriotism — Story of 
Leonidas — Persistency — Other Stories — Self- 
help — Modesty — Manners — Gratitude — 
Friends and Companions — Cleanliness, Bodily 
and Mental — Physical Culture — Government 
— Sewing — Manual Training — Nature Study 
— Fairness — Games and Plays 55 

Chapter IV 

Children of Ten and Eleven Years 

Psychic Development of Children — Idea of "Rep- 
resentatives—The City— The State— The 
Nation — Ideal Characters — Work — Manners 
— Time — Moral Education through Interest 
in Physical Development — Housewifery — 
Frugality and Wastefulness — School Banks . 91 

Chapter V 
Children of Twelve Years 

Introductory Remarks— Citizenship— Occupational 
Morality — Work — History — Government 
of the Aztecs and Incas — Kinds of Govern- 
ment — Clean Character — Ideal Characters — 
Physical Ideals — Manners — Natural History 
—Courage — Modesty — Games and Athletic 
Clubs 123 



CONTENTS 9 

Chapter VI 

Children of Thirteen Years 

Need of Vocational Guidance in Elementary- 
School — Points to Remember: Impress 
Necessity of Schooling; Impart Knowledge of 
Trades; Impart Knowledge of Particular 
Trade; Encourage Co-operation between Em- 
ployer and Employe — Outline of Method — 
Vocational Clubs — Co-operation in Business — 
Thrift and Waste — Domestic Science — Read- 
ing — Sex Hygiene — Peace and War — Patriot- 
ism — Appearance and Personal Hygiene — 
Character Studies — Concluding Note . . . . 159 

Chapter VII 

Children of Fourteen Years 

Characteristics of This Age — Habit-forming and 
Breaking — True Citizenship — History — Indi- 
vidual and Public Rights — Ideals — Body, 
Mind and Soul — Effects of Smoking — Effects 
of Coffee-drinking — Domestic Science — Man- 
ners — Happiness through Doing — Concluding 
Note 195 

Chapter VIII 

Reading list 

Object of the List — Value of Reading — Mistake of 
Dissecting Good Literature — Books for Vari- 
ous Ages — ^Word of Caution 224 



10 CONTENTS 

CjBAPTER IX 

The Health of the Child 

Place of the School in the Health of the Child — 
Ventilation and Lighting — Seating — School 
Lunches — Medical and Physical Examinations 
— Bathing Facilities — Value of Play — Dancing 
— Team Work — Track Sports — Basket Ball — 
Music — Mental and Moral Defectives ... 231 

Bibliography 240 



INTRODUCTION, 

Character development, in the broadest mean- 
ing of that term, should include what is generally 
called ''moral education," as well as specific 
education in the different fields of morals, so to 
speak. For instance there are what may be 
termed ''political" morals, which would include 
citizenship; then there are what may be called 
vocational morals, or business morals, or occupa- 
tional morals; finally there are the so-called 
personal morals, which cover a man's relations 
with his own character, so to speak, and his 
relations with his fellow men — relations which 
have nothing to do directly with political or 
occupational morals. 

We no longer believe that the "moral" side 
of one's nature is independent of the physical 
and mental parts of one's make-up. The moral, 
mental, and physical are so intimately related 
that what affects one affects the other two. So 
when we take up the broad question of moral 
education, we must consider also the mental and 
physical conditions that particularly affect the 
moral condition. 

Until very lately mental training, moral train- 
ing, and, to a large extent, physical training, 

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12 INTRODUCTION 

have been carried on, as well as might be, by 
entirely unconnected agencies. Lately, however, 
educational experts are beginning to be aware 
of the close connection between the physical and 
mental, if not the physical and moral, and so are 
giving physical training a more and more import- 
ant place in the school. To the church has been 
left, to a large extent, the direct and specific 
moral education — to the church and to the home. 
The school has made little attempt to educate 
in any one of the moral fields. There has been 
no consistent teaching in citizenship, in occupa- 
tional morality, and, of course, nothing in private 
morals. All this has been left to the home and 
to the church, and both of these have failed, to 
a large degree, for a variety of reasons. 

One reason for the failure of the church is that 
its teaching has been unconnected with the daily 
needs of the children; it has not based the char- 
acter and method of its teaching upon a knowledge 
of child psychology. Furthermore, it has failed 
utterly to connect in a practical way the physical 
and the mental fife with the moral. 

The average home has failed also, often through 
neglect, often through an ignorance of needs and 
methods, often through diffidence, and often 
because the home has not been aware that it 
has any duty beyond seeing that the children 
are well fed and clothed. We must remember. 



INTRODUCTION 13 

too, that a great number of homes are those of 
people who find it hard to make both ends meet. 
Often both parents are workers, which makes it 
almost impossible for them to do anything worth 
while for their children, even if they were aware 
of a need and knew what to do. 

Again, many homes are those of new-comers 
in this country, of people who are absolutely 
ignorant of our manners, our customs, our history, 
our ideals, and our government. These people 
cannot help their children, even if they would. 

So it seems that the work must be done by the 
schools, and, after all, moral education is more 
important than any other kind. The status of 
a nation depends upon the character of its people 
rather than upon their knowledge of the parts 
of speech and of arithmetical complexities. 

The school, in fact, is beginning to take up such 
matters. We see developing a certain amount 
of physical training, manual training, and domestic 
science, although there is little or no correla- 
tion between the different activities that really 
make for moral education. 

A school system, to make a scheme of moral 
education or character development really effec- 
tive, should be provided with what might be 
termed a Department of Moral Education, which 
would be under a director whose work it would 
be to so correlate the different phases of the 



14 INTRODUCTION 

system that they would work together for the 
same end, instead of going at it independently, 
and often at cross purposes. 

Under the Director of Moral Education should 
be several sub-directors, having direct charge of 
the following activities: Recreation, Physical 
Training, Medical Inspection, Domestic Science, 
Vocational Guidance, Citizenship, and, finally. 
General Ethics. 

The director should have considerable authority 
in general educational matters, so that his advice 
would be considered when it concerned the actual 
mental work done by children of different grades 
at different stages of development. We have 
been too apt to apportion different subjects to 
be studied by children at different stages of devel- 
opment without being sure that the children of 
a certain stage of development were psycho- 
logically fitted for certain subjects. Not only 
so, but the actual methods of teaching these 
subjects have been developed more from the 
standpoint of expediency than from knowledge 
of the psychological capacities and chaiacteristics 
of children. The director should have, there- 
fore, a good working knowledge of practical 
child psychology, or he should have an expert 
child psychologist as an adviser, so that each 
subject to be studied could be discussed and 
finally given to children at the proper stage of 



INTRODUCTION 15 

mental development, and in a method best 
suited to their natural characteristics — that is, 
the characteristics natural to them at that time. 

The departments of medical examination, phys- 
ical training, and recreation should work closely 
together. The physical-training staff should 
have at hand the results of the medical and 
physical examination of every child, and suit 
their exercises directly to the needs of the children. 
The department of recreation should see to it 
that through interest in recreation and sports 
the children are encouraged to follow the advice 
of the physical-training representatives. 

The departments of physical training and 
medical inspection should supply trained nurses 
and lecturers to aid in branches of the work 
carried on under the general name of domestic 
science; for the latter subject should include 
practical ''home" hygiene, the care of infants, 
and the like, and should be given to the girls 
of the lower grades — as low as the fourth at least, 
since many of the girls will shortly be workers, 
and, not long afterward, wives. Such subjects 
are, in rare instances, given in high schools, 
but so few girls ever get to high school that the 
work there barely touches the surface of the 
need. The girls who need real domestic science 
the most are those who must leave school at 
fourteen— and not the high-school girls. 



16 INTRODUCTION 

The recreational department should aid the 
domestic-science department by teaching through 
recreation facts helpful to future housewives. 
The class-room work in ethics should help all the 
other branches by showing their ethical signifi- 
cance to the children. And so it is that each one 
of the various branches which go to make moral 
education should help the others — and co-operate 
with them with great increase of efficiency as a 
result. 

The fact is that all these subjects are really 
concerned with the moral development of the 
child, and therefore, logically, must be taught 
in their actual connections, if the work is to be 
natural and effective. In the following pages 
this work will be described in considerable detail. 
It might be said that these lessons have been 
written under exceptional circumstances. Each 
one has been tried in typical public schools, and 
the form in which they now appear is the result 
of this preliminary trying-out. 

It will be found that the work has been planned 
to cover the usual school ages of from six to four- 
teen years inclusive, corresponding with the usual 
first to eighth grades inclusive of the public schools. 
The attempt has been made to give complete 
explanation for each topic considered. Many 
of these are supposed to be handled by the grade 
teachers. The average teacher has enough on 



INTRODUCTION 17 

her hands without being required to look up a 
considerable amount of new material, and many 
have not the requisite experience necessary to 
make possible their developing an effective exer- 
cise when nothing but the topic is given. So it 
is that nearly all the necessary material for such 
class-room work is described with each topic. 

In conclusion, the writer wishes to express 
his deep appreciation of the stimulating encourage- 
ment of Dr. Martin G. Brumbaugh, Super- 
intendent of Pubhc Schools for Philadelphia; 
the careful and helpful criticism of Dr. Arthur 
Holmes, Dean of the General Faculty of the 
Pennsylvania State College; and the invaluable 
co-operation of Miss Mary E. Leeds and Dr. 
Frieda Lippert, who have perfected much of the 
plan prepared for girls, and of the members of 
the Committee on Moral and Social Education 
of the Home and School League and the Civic 
Club of Philadelphia. 



CHAPTER I 

Children of Six and Seven Years 

"Why do you come to school?' ' is an appropriate 
question for first-grade children. Let them think 
a little while and then have each one answer. 
Try to make the discussion as informal as may 
be, for, if too formal, the children will try to 
think of answers that will be likely to please the 
teacher rather than give their own opinions. 
Select the best answers and tell why they are 
the best. 

A boy or a girl who has never gone to school 
cannot do certain things. What are they? 
Bring out the idea that reading is necessary, 
if we want to send messages to others and read 
others' messages to us. 

The Value of School 

When a man knows a great deal about some impor- 
tant thing, and everybody wants him to tell them about 
it, he cannot do so by speech, for that would take too 
long for speaker and listeners. So he finds it a good 
thing to be able to write down what he knows and have 
it all printed, and then the people who want his advice 
and knowledge can buy what he has written and read 

2 (19) 



20 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

it for themselves. And whenever they want to remem- 
ber any part of his advice, they can always find it in 
the book — if they know how to read. 

Perhaps a woman knows how to cook much better 
than most women, and knows of more nice things to 
eat than most. Then the others, of course, want to 
know about these things, because all good women 
want to be able to cook good things and to know of 
good things to cook. But the wise woman hasn't 
time to tell all she knows to all that want to know, 
for there may be thousands who would like to learn. 
If she cannot write, then very few can learn the good 
things she knows; but if she can write, then she puts 
down on paper all about the good dishes she can cook, 
and has it printed in a book. Then all the thousands 
of good women who want to know about these valuable 
things can buy the book and learn for themselves — 
that is, if they know how to read. If they can't read, 
they must get some one to read the book to them, 
though they will probably forget what they heard very 
soon. But if they can read, they can pick up the book 
at any time and learn what they want to know. 

Perhaps a certain man may know a very great deal 
about building houses. Now lots of men want to know 
how houses can be built best — stone-masons, brick- 
layers, carpenters, plasterers, plumbers, and many 
others, all want to know how different parts of a house 
can be built best. Well, this man who knows so much 
about it certainly cannot go about and tell it all to 
everyone who wants to know; for, first of all, these 
folks would soon forget what he said, and second, 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 21 

he wouldn't have time. So, if he can write, he puts 
what he knows into a book. Then all the workmen, 
if they can read, can learn all they need in the book; 
and, if they forget, they always have the book in which 
they can read again. 

Try to have the children bring out instances 
where it is necessary to have a knowledge of 
reading and writing, and, if possible, make com- 
petitive the learning of these things in the class 
room. For instance, ask a boy if he has seen 
anything interesting or important; then tell 
him to try to write it on paper so that all the 
others could know of the matter, even if they 
lived far away. If the boy makes mistakes in 
his message — and it is most likely that he will — 
have the others show the mistakes, and make 
it competitive to have the least number of mis- 
takes. The usual teaching of reading and writ- 
ing interests the children very little. An active 
interest would accomplish wonders. Witness 
the success of the Montessori Method. 

In School One Can Learn To Use One's Mind 

Once there were two young men about eighteen 
years old who went to work in a factory. They did 
not know anything about the kind of work they did 
in that factory, and so began doing the very easy and 
simple things. The foreman showed them how to 
do these simple things, and after that, if they wished 



22 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

to know more, and get better positions, and more 
money, and perhaps become foremen themselves — 
well, the foreman left all that to them. Each of these 
youDg men had to make his own way upward, if he 
wished to do more than these easy simple things in the 
factory. Naturally, they both wanted to do better, 
to earn more money, and get better and better positions. 

The first one, John, thought about it a great deal. 
He wanted to do better, but the more he thought about 
it, the more puzzled he became. He could understand 
the work he was doing, for that was very simple; but 
the work the next man farther up was doing seemed 
very hard, and he could not quite understand how 
this higher man did it. John had never had to think 
more than was necessary, so he thought very slowly. 
Now John had never been to school. If he had gone 
to school, he would have been able to read, and, if he 
had been able to read, he would most likely have 
known that he could have learned a great deal about 
the higher man's work in books. And then, anyway, 
if he had only thought of it, he might have asked the 
higher man a few questions, now and then, and so have 
learned about that work. But he was ashamed to 
seem to know so little, and so did not ask the higher 
man anything for a long while. 

Now Harry, the second young man, had gone to 
school all he could, and stopped going only because it 
was necessary for him to help at home. His parents 
worked hard, too, and every good son should help his 
parents, because they helped him when he was young. 
But Harry knew how to read and write. And he also 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 23 

knew how to do things with numbers. He could add, 
subtract, divide, and do other useful things. Well, 
like John, he wanted to get a better position and earn 
more money, and so help his parents. He did not 
understand about the work the higher man was doing, 
but he knew that most information can be found in 
books; so, in the evenings he went to the library 
instead of hanging around corners as John did, and 
there he found books that had a lot of information 
about that kind of work. So Harry read these books, 
and understood almost all about the work of the man 
higher up, but not quite all. Harry was not ashamed 
to show he did not know a thing, for no person can 
know everything. So, when he had the chance, he 
asked the higher man many questions about the work, 
until, finally, he could do that kind of work himself. 
When the careful foreman saw that, he gave Harry the 
higher kind of work, and so he received more pay and 
could help his parents more and also have more things 
for himself. 

After a while John, who had been thinking a long 
time, took courage to ask the man higher up, and the 
man explained his work to John. But John was a 
long time learning, for he did not have the help from 
the books, as Harry did. After a while John learned, 
too, and was given a position higher up. But he never 
caught up to Harry, for Harry kept on asking, and 
thinking, and reading, and kept going higher till he 
was a foreman himself. But John never became a 
foreman, because he never could learn, possibly, all 
the things that a foreman must know. 



24 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

It should be made clear that to go to school 
is a privilege, and a very great one, that all 
children do not have. 

Punctuality 

Punctuality in the class should be insisted 
upon from the first, so that it may be made a 
habit of mind. The love of competition is a 
natural characteristic of all normal children, 
and, when used with discretion, can be made a 
valuable adjunct in child-training. So prompt- 
ness may be approached in a competitive aspect, 
especially with young children, the most regular 
being made distinguished in some way. Young 
children have few ideas concerning the rightness 
or wrongness of things, but, by means of compe- 
tition and other effectual means, they can be 
persuaded to do regularly a thing that is right 
till it becomes a habit. Punctuality can be 
made a habit in this way. A competition, with 
young children, will be a hundred times more 
effectual than all the lectures in the world on the 
value of promptness. Not that the lectures 
should be abandoned, but the lectxu'e and the 
stimulus should work together, the first furnish- 
ing an understandable reason and the second a 
motive force. As the child grows older, the 
reason will become more and more the important 
part of the action. 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 25 

There was a boy who often came to school late. 
He could have come to school on time always, but he 
was lazy, or did not stop to think about it. So he 
usually missed something that was taught at the 
beginning of school. Though he did not miss very 
much each time he was late, it amounted to so much 
that at the end of the year he did not know enough 
about some things to go into the class above, and was 
left down. There were other reasons, too. He was 
late in getting to school, as I said, and he was late 
often in getting his lessons ready. 

So he was left down several times, and after a while 
foxmd himself with little boys instead of with boys his 
own size. And when he jBnally left school, the boys 
of his own age were way up in the higher school, or 
they had gone to work and were getting along finely. 
Well, the boy who was late so often did not care about 
the higher school because he was so old and had lost 
so much time that he had to go to work. He got a 
place as office-boy. He was to go to the office and have 
everything in order by the time his employer arrived. 
For a week or two he did very well. Then one morning 
he was so late that the employer came before the boy 
got there, and the employer was not pleased at all. 
But he forgave the boy that time, and gave him good 
advice about promptness. He forgave the boy another 
time, too; but the third time was too much, so he told 
the boy that he would have to find another place. 
Well, the boy was discouraged, but he found another 
place as helper in a foundry. In a few weeks he began 
coming late again, and, of course, they would not have 



26 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

him. It was the same with the next place, and the 
same with the next. And for some years that fellow 
had a hard time. His clothes looked very bad, because 
he could not earn money enough to buy new ones. 
He was often very hungry, for he could not earn money 
enough to have good meals. Finally, when he was quite 
grown up, one day he seemed to open his eyes for the 
first time. The boys he knew when he was a boy were 
all doing well, and he reahzed that all his trouble came 
from not being on time. It was very hard for him at 
first, for once you get a bad habit it is very hard to 
break, but when he got another place he made a great 
effort to be there promptly, and to do his work promptly. 
For a few months it was very hard, and he nearly 
failed a few times; but, the first thing you know, 
it became easier and easier, and soon he was prompt 
just through habit, and did not have to think anything 
about it. And then he was advanced and advanced, 
and earned more money, and lived comfortably. 

Enlarge on what would happen if children did 
not have to come to class on time — the confusion 
that would ensue. Get the children to tell of 
various misfortunes that would arise if people 
of various professions or occupations were not 
on time. What would happen, for instance, if 
trains did not run on time, if business men and 
workmen could not be counted upon to arrive 
on time or to get their work done on time, if 
fire-engines did not come on time, and the like. 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 27 

Tell the children to report next time what ill- 
happenings they had observed out of school from 
lack of promptness. Mere talking about such 
things, as has been said, is not enough — at least, 
when all the talking is done by the teacher. But 
if the children are enabled to recognize tardiness 
when they see it and to realize its bad effects, 
they have been given a clear idea which will be 
of great value in the molding of their characters. 

Obedience 

Obedience, a rational amount of it, should be 
made a habit. Obedience means self-control and 
not weak subserviency, as too often thought. 
A parent who allows a child to do as he pleases 
for fear of breaking his ''will," does not give 
that child a will at all, but makes him merely 
''wilful," which is very different. A child who, 
against his own wishes, will make himself obey, 
must possess considerable self-control. Self-con- 
trol means strength of character. Wilfulness 
means lack of strength. Be sure that what you 
require is in keeping with the mental develop- 
ment of your children — and then stick to your 
requirements. 

Ask this question and encourage a general 
discussion: "Why should children obey?" What 
would be the result if people did not obey those 
who have direction over them and care of them? 



28 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

It is very good for boys and girls to do things that are 
hard to do. If you do something that is hard to do, 
and if you do it well, it makes you strong, and every 
one wants to be strong. It is just like lifting heavy 
dumb-bells. It is hard to lift them up, but the more 
you lift them, the stronger your arms become. And 
so it is with doing things we do not want to do. Some- 
times we are told to do things we do not want to do at 
all. We would much rather not. It is easy not to do it, 
perhaps, and very hard to do it. Well, if you make 
yourself do what you do not want to do, and make 
yourself do it well, it makes you strong. The person 
who can obey an order without waiting a while and 
without asking a whole lot of questions, is a good deal 
stronger than the person who does not obey. Suppose 
in an army the soldiers would not obey. There have 
been armies like that, but they have never won any 
victories, you may be sure! 

Some time ago a wonderful body of soldiers, only 
four hundred strong, were ordered to make a cavalry 
charge against a strong battery of heavy cannon. 
It was a terrible thing. All the four-hundred knew 
the order was a mistake. But it was an order. 
It was a very hard one. To obey meant death for 
most of them. It would have been easy to make such 
an objection that the commanding general would have 
been notified, and then he would have discovered that 
the order was a mistake. But these brave men did 
not wait a minute. They were soldiers, and strong 
men, and so off they galloped, full speed, against those 
terrible cannon. It was a wonderful charge, but only 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 29 

a few returned. Hardly ever have soldiers been de- 
clared such heroes as they were. Some day you should 
read the poem that Tennyson wrote about them. 

Suppose that in a factory or in a workshop a work- 
man would not obey an order of his foreman; or suppose 
the foreman would not obey Ms superior, and suppose 
even the high officers of the company would refuse to 
do the orders of the owners of the company. What 
would happen? Why, the work of the company would 
be spoiled. If one workman disobeyed, they would 
probably get another in his place, and so with the 
foreman. If the officers disobeyed, possibly the whole 
business would be ruined, the factory closed, and many 
people would have no work, and they would have great 
trouble. But all that is not very likely to happen. 
For the foreman would not have become a foreman if 
he had not been an obedient workman, and the super- 
intendent would not have had his position if he had 
not been an obedient foreman. And so all the way up. 
The successful man knows how to obey directions. 

And so it is in school, too. A boy or girl who cannot 
obey will not do well with lessons, and so will not be 
able to do well after leaving school, and will have a 
hard time keeping positions, too. So you should get 
in practice now for being successful, boys and girls, 
and obey your teacher, without hesitating a moment. 
And it should be the same at home, too. You should 
obey your parents without hesitating, they have done 
so much for you that you should do all you can for 
them. You will never be given charge of others till 
you learn to obey yourself. 



30 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Other stories may be told showing the results 

of disobedience on a steamer, in a store or the like. 

Then tell the children to watch for several days, 

when they are out of school, to see how many 

cases of disobedience they can discover, with 

the results. 

Respect 

A young child can hardly hope to understand 
the full meaning of a word like ''respect," but a 
few simple ideas concerning it can be made 
clear, and, with the aid of "action," or outward 
"manners," be made a part of a child's mental 
make-up. Our thoughts, to a large extent, 
affect our muscular actions, and the opposite is 
true. Our muscular actions have their effects 
on our thoughts. If a child habitually shows 
respect by action, eventually the idea of respect 
will be a natural one for him. So there is more 
than a mere outward value in teaching a child 
"good manners." Absolutely insist upon good 
manners in the class room, though be careful 
not to make the requirements too strict or too 
complicated. For instance, it seems that a child, 
coming to school in the morning, should not run 
carelessly into the room and take his place with- 
out noticing the teacher. It might be better 
for the child to stop at the door till the teacher 
looks up; then, after saying "Good morning," 
go quietly to the proper desk. 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 31 

Respect for parents and elders generally should 
be made a point of a number of times through the 
year. The continual care a mother gives a child, 
especially in infancy, should be described. It 
should also be made clear that the continual 
labor of the father is necessary if the child is to 
have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place 
to live in. Therefore a child, in return, should 
do everything possible for his or her parents. 
Tell how respect can be shown — by considera- 
tion, good manners, obedience and the like. 
Mention the different ways boys can show good 
manners in public, such as raising the hat, giving 
up their seats in public conveyances to women 
and to their elders. Tell why "interrupting" is 
impolite, etc. It should be made a strong point 
for the boys that to have good manners is to be 
manly, and that to lack good manners displays 
ignorance. 

Practical examples, of course, can be given the 
children, by asking what they would do in such 
and such a case, and suggesting that at some 
future time they tell the class what particularly 
polite acts they noticed, and what particularly 
impolite ones. 

Cleanliness 

It should be remembered that no normal boy 
is likely to remain very clean for any great space 
of time. In fact, if a boy has clean hands and 



32 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

face all the time, he had better be seen to! For 

there must be something wrong somewhere! 

But a certain amount of cleanHness should be 

expected and insisted upon. The boys should 

come to class reasonably well washed. A pubUc 

example, now and then, of a boy with abnormally 

dirty hands is sometimes effective, especially if 

he can be made to wash them before the class, 

in a tin basin kept for the purpose. This topic 

affects the boys a great deal more than the girls, 

who can be reached, generally, by appealing to 

their "appearance." Photographs of a dirty 

boy and girl, and others of the same children 

when made clean and neat, may be an effective 

object lesson to have on hand, perhaps hanging 

on the wall. 

"Mine and Thine" 

At six or seven the average child has very 
definite ideas of what is meant by possession, 
but the rights of others as regards to possession 
have not yet become very clear to him. If 
he does not take things belonging to others it 
is often, no doubt, because of the fear of conse- 
quences rather than because he can put him- 
self in the place of another and imagine how 
it feels to have some one go off with his posses- 
sions. So it is this other side that must be built 
up. The child must be made to see that there 
is another side than his own in taking what does 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 33 

not belong to Mm. Try to bring out as far as 
possible a child's own concept of the whole matter. 
It is invariably far better, even if it takes longer, 
to have a child develop right ideas out of his own 
experience and through his own mental effort 
rather than to have these ideas presented, un- 
connected with his own experiences, by his teacher. 
Simple questioning can do much in bringing out 
and developing ideas. 

Ask the class this: "Why isn't it right to take 
things that belong to other peopled The first 
answers will be illogical and far-fetched, but 
persistency and encouragement will bring out 
right ideas in the end. Have different children 
try to tell what would happen if people could 
take what they wanted of the property of others. 
Show that a man would be afraid to leave his 
home for fear some one would come and take 
away his goods, and that a man would be afraid 
to carry a pocket-book without carrying a weapon 
all the time. 

All windows would have to be iron-barred. No one 
could trust anyone. Men couldn't work for other men 
for fear that their employers might not be honest about 
their wages, and people would be afraid to employ 
workmen for fear that the workmen would try to 
cheat iQ their work, or steal the tools, or the like. 
Schools could not lend books to the children, for fear 
that the children would not return them. After a 



34 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

long time, perhaps thousands of years, it was found 
that people could not get along together unless they 
trusted each other. 

Once there was a small boy, who, because he was 
strong, would take away from his playmates any of 
their toys that he wanted. Finally all the children 
became suspicious of him and would not play with 
him and united to guard their things when he was 
around, and soon he found that he was not having a 
good time at all. When he grew up he still knew no 
better. He thought that instead of working himself 
he would let others work and then take from them 
some of the things they worked for, and so he stole 
money and other things when he had the chance. 
Finally, men became suspicious of him, and would not 
have anything to do with him, and began to guard 
their property. Still, though he was having a very 
unpleasant life, because all good people shunned him, he 
tried to take things not belonging to him. So the men 
decided that he was too dangerous a person to be 
allowed to go about the streets, and had him locked 
up in a jail, where he could not do others any damage. 
Boys do not like a boy who takes things that do not 
belong to him, and they make it unpleasant for that 
boy, and men do not like men who take things in the 
same way, and so lock them away in order that property 
will be safe from them. 

Have the children tell of such instances as 
they have seen when property of another has 
been taken, with evil results. Bring out both 
sides — the results of trust and dishonesty. 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 35 

Trulh 

We too often expect a child to know instinc- 
tively the meaning of truth, and the reason for 
its necessity. By the time a child comes to 
school, intelligent parental training should have 
made the beginnings of light concepts con|;ern- 
ing truth in the child's mind. Unfortunately 
we cannot depend upon a majority of homes in 
this matter — perhaps not even upon half of 
them. So that a teacher of young children, 
irrespective of the class of society to which the 
children belong, should begin upon the general 
principle that her charges have no very clear 
ideas on the matter. It can readily be seen that 
this topic is closely connected with the preceding 
one. 

Ask the class: "Why should one tell the truth?" 
Do not be satisfied with such answers as '' Because 
it is right," or "Because it is bad to tell lies," 
and the like. ''Rightness" and "wrongness," 
in the abstract, and often in the concrete, are 
difficult concepts for a child to understand. 
Remember that such ideas are not inherent, but 
must be constructed by means of education. 
Therefore have the children themselves develop 
the advantages of truth, bringing out not only 
the advantages of truth-telling, however, but 
the disadvantages of untruth-telling as well. 
In this way the children can be made to show 



36 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

what would result if no one trusted the word of 
another. Stories, if simple in the telHng and 
concept, make points such as this one very clear 
to young children — as well as to their elders! 
The Wolf story is a good example: 

There was a young shepherd boy who was given a 
little flock of sheep to look after every day. In the 
village where this boy lived everybody did what he 
could to help with the work. So this boy was given 
a little flock of sheep, and the field where he took them 
was in a lonely place near a dark woods. 

One day the boy felt lonely, and so he thought of a 
joke he might play on the people of the village, and 
have some company at the same time. He ran a little 
way home so that his voice could be heard and cried 
"Wolf! Wolf!" at the top of his voice. All the villagers 
thought that a wolf was after the boy's sheep, and so 
out they came, some with guns and others with clubs, 
to kill the wolf or drive him away. But they did not 
find any wolf at all, and soon went home again, and the 
boy chuckled to himself every time he thought of the 
fun he had had. A few days afterwards he did the 
same thing again. Again the people rushed out to 
drive away the wolf, and back they went when there 
was no wolf to be found. 

Finally, one afternoon, the boy heard a terrific 
snarling and the sheep began to run in all directions, 
and there he saw a great grey wolf running out of the 
forest. This time the boy was re.tlly frightened, and 
yelled "Wolf! Wolf!" just as loud as he could. But 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 37 

the people of the village shook their heads when they 
heard him and said, "That young scamp can't fool us 
again!" So the wolf helped himself to the best of the 
flock and the boy was nearly frightened out of his wits. 
When he returned to the village with the sheep he 
had left, he complained because nobody came to help 
him; but the wise old man of the village said sternly 
to him, "No one believes a liar — even when he tells 
the truth!" 

Courage 

Children are instinctively afraid of many 
quite harmless or nearly harmless things. Mak- 
ing fun of a child's fears is not the best way of 
dispelling them. The best way is to learn what 
the fears are, in an understanding and sympa- 
thetic manner, explain away their ''mysteries" 
and make them familiar with the real character- 
istics of the things they fear. Often a child 
can be shown that there are very interesting and 
sometimes even beautiful things connected with 
the things it fears. The usual child is afraid 
of the dark, for instance. Making fun of this 
fear may arouse a child's pride so that he or 
she will not express the fear, which exists just 
the same. Discuss the question of ''dark" 
sympathetically. Try to have the child tell 
what there is in the dark of which he is afraid. 
Express a liking for twilight and for darkness 
when opportunity presents itself. A walk along 



38 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

a park or country road at night, with all the 
beauties of nature such as appear only in night 
pointed out, will do wonders; but the child 
in such a case must be brought to want to take 
the walk. A child, and not a child only, fears 
lightning and thunder. Much of this natural 
fear can be dissipated by explaining, as far as 
can be, what lightning and thunder are, and by 
dwelUng on their beauties. Children can be 
taught to admire lightning, without showing the 
slightest fear, and actually to enjoy the great 
roll of the thunder. If such great fears of child- 
hood as that of the ''dark" and that of lightning 
can be greatly modified, and fairly easily, it is 
much. easier to do away with the lesser fears of 
childhood, as of mice, spiders, beetles, and the 
like. A study of spider-webs and a few white 
mice will often do wonders in this respect. 

Endeavor to make the children feel that it is 
far better to endure one's little misfortunes and 
bumps and disappointments cheerfully than to 
tell one's troubles to others, who doubtless have 
enough of their own already. To be cheerful 
under difficulty is real manliness and womanliness. 

There are many stories of brave children that 
can be told in this connection, and, furthermore, 
few days go by without the newspapers' telling of 
some heroic action done by a boy or a girl. The 
children might be encouraged, for a few days, 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 39 

to look around them, when outdoors, and tell 
what brave things they have seen and heard 
about. 

The following adventure happened to two 
boy friends of the writer. They were George and 
Frank, each eleven years old. They were camp- 
ing hundreds of miles from home, with a great 
broad lake before their tent and a deep woods 
behind it. One night, when the two boys were 
asleep, a tremendous storm arose. There was 
a continual flashing of lightning and great booms 
of thunder. Then came a terrific wind and a 
deluge of rain. In a second the tent was blown 
over, leaving George out in the open, still in 
his bed, and Frank pinned down to his bed by 
the roof of the tent which came down upon him. 
Both boys awoke out of a sound sleep. When, 
a few minutes afterwards, help came to them, 
George, who was free to move, was lying on his 
back, howling dismally, while Frank, pinned 
down tightly under the roof-tree, half smothered 
in wet canvas and drenching torrents of water, 
was grinning from ear to ear. When the obstruc- 
tions were removed, he laughed as though he 
thought it the greatest joke that ever happened 
in his life. 

Mayor, Governor and President 

Each class room should have framed photo- 
graphs or prints of the mayor of the city, the 



40 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

governor of the state, and the president of the 
United States. They should not be cheap-look- 
ing pictures, carelessly or cheaply framed, but 
as fine as can be had at reasonable cost, framed 
well, and placed in an important and prominent 
position. 

A child much older than those we are now dis- 
cussing, generally has the vaguest idea as to what 
is meant by these offices. A beginning should 
be made with the youngest children, and the 
idea developed as they go from grade to grade, 
until, finally, they are capable of understanding 
some of the finer points of governmental ideas. 

The children might be asked what would happen 
were there no principal in a school. Bring out 
the disorganization and lack of general order 
and co-operation that would be likely to result. 

Before explaining anything about the offices 
mentioned, ask the children questions about 
them, so that such ideas as they have may be 
brought out and the general interest awakened. 

Tell how the people of a city make many laws 
for the benefit of all, laws to protect the strong 
from the weak, the honest from the dishonest, 
laws that concern the running of the many city 
activities which are of greatest importance to 
individuals, such as maintaining streets, illumi- 
nating-gas and electrical-power plants, schools, 
harbors, fire-departments, and the like. Explain 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 41 

how it is that one man is chosen from the people 
of the city to represent them and to see that the 
laws are obeyed by all, to look over the city and 
to suggest improvements, and so on. Tell how 
often the mayor is elected, and what qualifica- 
tions he must have. 

Give a very simple and brief idea of a "state," 
telling that the first states were great properties 
given to men for different reasons — for planta- 
tions, settlements, and the like, and that finally 
the thirteen original ones made laws for them- 
selves, and selected men as governors to see that 
the laws of the state were carried out in the state 
— the governor being for the state what the mayor 
is for the city. Then tell how these states gradu- 
ally took over the vast western territory, divided 
it also into states, which elect their governors also. 

Finally, explain how these different states 
united so as to be stronger, and how they made 
laws for the benefit of all, and so chose a man, 
the president, to see that those laws were obeyed 
by all. 

In this simple manner young children may 
gain a fairly good idea as to what is meant by 
various offices, and, this idea being basically true, 
it can be added to, as time goes on, until, at the 
end of the grammar-school career, the child has 
gained a working knowledge of the whole system. 

Each class, too, should be given a short history 



42 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

of the flag, and each class should have a flag, 
perhaps draped over the three pictures mentioned. 

Kindness to Animals 

A young child does not realize that an animal 
feels pain to any particular extent. It takes a 
little training of the imagination for a child to 
put himself mentally in the place of an animal, 
and so have sympathy for it. In every home 
worthy of the name a child is taught, early in 
its career, that animals feel pain much as we do, 
and so should not be made to suffer needlessly. 
But the unthinking cruelty of children, shown not 
only to animals, but even to other children who 
are crippled or suffer other physical misfortunes, 
shows us that children do not develop sympathy 
as soon as they should. Therefore, in the class 
room several times in the year the subject should 
be taken up by the teacher, using stories or dis- 
cussions that will aid in the development of a 
kindly feeling towards animals. 

There are several excellent stories, of the Black 
Beauty type, which can be told or read by the 
teacher. 

Children learn so much by means of observa- 
tion, that this faculty should be used whenever 
practicable. In the previous lessons it has been 
suggested frequently that the children be en- 
couraged to observe certain things when out of 



SIX AND SEVEN YEARS 43 

school, to report upon them at a certain day. 
This method can be used equally well with the 
present lesson. The children can be told to 
observe, on the way to and from school, or when 
playing near home, instances when animals were 
kindly or unkindly treated. 

Pictures 

Children are always greatly interested in 
pictures. Sometimes a picture will make an 
impression on a child that will last for years. 
School rooms, as a rule, are ugly enough; yet 
it is not difficult to make a room both pleasant 
and beautiful. When this is not done in a new 
building, a crime against childhood has been 
committed. But no matter how cheery and 
beautiful the room, fine pictures can be added 
to advantage. With children of six or seven years 
old, the pictures may point a rather obvious 
moral. Older children appreciate and enjoy 
fine pictures for their own sake. It is far better 
to have one picture, and that a good one, well 
framed, than to have a wall filled with cheap — 
obviously cheap — ^prints of doubtful meaning and 
worth. 



CHAPTER II 

Children of Eight Years 

Lessons outlined for six- and seven-year-old 
children, in many instances, should be repeated, 
perhaps in an expanded form, for children of eight 

years. 

Manners 

Manners should be a topic taken up several 
times in the year. The points previously brought 
out might be used again to advantage, and taken 
up in further detail. For instance, good manners 
as shown in speech might be a topic for one day, 
using practical examples to show the children 
how to answer a question, speak to an elder, or 
the like, politely. The speech of the average 
American child has the reputation of being fre- 
quently rude and filled with seeming imperti- 
nences. Points may be illustrated by asking 
the children how they would reply or what they 
would say in such and such a case. Have them 
relate examples of poHte speech they have heard 
in a specified time. Table manners should be 
considered at least once or twice. It may interest 
the children to describe how table manners have 

(44) 



EIGHT YEARS 45 

improved from age to age; how savages eat 
everything with their fingers; how in the Middle 
Ages fingers were still largely used, though the 
knife was made use of when necessary; how the 
introduction of the fork was opposed. Tell how 
people used to eat from trenchers — plain boards — 
and how the food was placed within a circle of 
bread, which was used to clean the board when 
the food was eaten, and how the bread, of course, 
was eaten too. Illustrate, by having knives, 
forks, and spoons on hand, how they are to be 
used, and have the children copy. It is not a 
bad idea to have several dishes prepared on one 
occasion, and have children illustrate how they 
should be eaten. 

The average American child will interrupt 
his elders, without conscience or apology, and 
think nothing of it. Good manners should be 
insisted upon absolutely in the class room, not to 
an unreasonable extreme, however, always re- 
membering how exceedingly difficult self-restraint 
is for a child of eight. Strict discipline is not the 
idea at all. Firmness, together with a great deal 
of kindness and encouragement, is the better 
policy. 

The average American child, it is said, is likely 
to push himself into conspicuous positions, where 
he is often unwelcome. The unusual deference 
shown in many homes to the whims of children 



46 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

cultivates a great deal of self-conceit. Stories 
should be told illustrating the downfall of the 
conceited man and the success of the modest, 
patient, unobtrusive, but strong and persistent 
man. 

"When thou art bidden of any man to a wedding, 
sit not down in the highest room; lest a more honorable 
man than thou be bidden of him; and he that bade 
thee and him come and say to thee, 'Give this man 
place,' and thou begin with shame to take the lowest 
room. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in 
the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh 
he may say unto thee, ' Friend, go up higher' : then shalt 
thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at 
meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself 
shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall 
be exalted." 

Manners in different places and under different 
circumstances should be considered, asking differ- 
ent children what they would do under such 
and such conditions, and having the others 
criticize. Manners in public conveyances, in 
the streets, and in the company of elders may 
be touched upon. 

Cleanliness 

The subject of cleanliness may be taken up 
again, and in a more detailed way than before. 
The children may be given a simple idea con- 
cerning the construction of the eye, ear, teeth. 



EIGHT YEARS 47 

hair, etc., and shown how cleanliness is best 
accomplished and why it is necessary. It should 
be pointed out that people are often judged by 
their appearance, and that the boy or girl whose 
hands are not clean, or whose clothes are not 
well kept, will create a poor impression, whether 
deserved or not. Children should realize that 
it is not the quality of clothes that counts so 
much as the condition in which they are kept. 
Clothes that are patched and darned are quite 
as respectable as new ones, provided they are 
clean. 

Honesty 

This lesson is a development of the previous 
lessons on Truth, and "Mine and Thine." Many 
think it sufficient to enlarge upon the results of 
dishonesty, of imtruthfulness and the like. This 
is the negative side of the question. Much more 
can be accomplished by enlarging upon the 
positive side, showing how many occupations 
are now possible only because of the honesty of 
the people engaged in them. In very ancient 
times dishonesty was more of a virtue than any- 
thing else. The Robber Barons of central Europe, 
in their day, were admired as heroes rather than 
condemned as thieves. In those days the strong 
took what they dared, and the more they took, 
the greater the credit. But the gradual develop- 
ment of a feeling of individual and popular honesty 



48 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

has meant the development, at the same time, of 
great commerces, from those carried on in very 
small ways by humble individuals, to those 
carried on by corporations of incredible wealth. 
It should be the object of the teacher to put 
these ideas into simple words so that they can 
be made clear to the children. 

After showing how much we are dependent 
upon mutual honesty, individual instances of 
honest actions under great difficulty should be 
described, as, for instance, the story of Lincoln, 
who, as a store-clerk, walked ten miles in an 
evening to repay a poor woman a few pennies 
with which she had over-paid an account. Many 
other similar stories will suggest themselves. 

Another point that can be made clear at this 
time is that all should respect and care for pubhc 
property. Explain how it is that all pubhc 
property is paid for by all by means of taxes. 
A child who destroys some pubhc property is 
damaging something for which perhaps his own 
father helped to pay. A boy who breaks a street 
lamp does this absurd kind of thing. We should 
all of us do what we can to care for our common 
property. We combine to pay pohce for this 
purpose, because we cannot do the actual watch- 
ing ourselves. But the police are not enough. 
We all of us should help. Ask the children to 
name different kinds of public property. 



EIGHT YEARS 49 

It has been found effective, in a school in 
Philadelphia, to have a police officer come into 
the school and give a ''man-to-man" talk to the 
boys, and tell them how they can co-operate 
with the police in protecting public property. 

Care of Things 

This lesson may be correlated with the previous 
one. The children should be given an idea of 
what property represents — how it stands for work, 
and how work is the basis of all human prosperity, 
happiness and health. Work is a sacred thing, 
and anything representing work should receive 
respect and care. Therefore, we should not 
only care for our own things, because some one, 
perhaps a parent, has worked hard for them, 
and work should not be wasted, but we should 
also care for such property of others as we use 
or come in contact with. 

Kindness to Animals and Their Rights 

This should be a continuation of the lessons 
given in the previous year. Studies in simple 
natural history are a great help. If the lessons 
are given in the early fall or late spring, it might 
be a good plan to have the children observe and 
report upon some common insect, if possible the 
ant, the most common and most interesting of 
all. Much information can be had from any 



50 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

good encyclopedia. The teacher, however, should 
be provided with a good book on the subject, 
from which interesting accounts can be taken 
from time to time. 

Stories concerning animals, as suggested in 
the last chapter, help much in giving children 
a sympathetic attitude toward animals in general. 
Many of the Mowgli stories of Kipling, as well 
as some others of his, may well be used. 

Do not make the fatal mistake of endeavoring 
to encourage children to be kind to animals by 
insisting that cruelty to them is ''wrong," dwell- 
ing a long time upon the wrongfulness of it and 
enlarging upon the probable fate of children who 
are cruel to animals. Children do not care much 
about the future, and have no very clear concep- 
tion of the idea of ''wrongness," so it is infinitely 
better to depend upon cultivating interest in, 
and sympathy for, animal life in general, by 
studying a few animals and insects in particular. 

Fairness 

Children of this age begin to say that a thing 
is or is not "fair." They are acquiring a sense 
of justice, which should be developed. Ask the 
children what they mean when they say a thing 
is ''not fair." You will find them unable to give 
a clear definition of the term. They feel it, and 
can distinguish a thing as being unfair, but can- 



EIGHT YEARS 51 

not give a definition of the term. Ask them what 
kinds of things are unfair. Ask them to describe 
unfair things they have seen within the last day 
or two, and explain why they were unfair. Give 
specific examples, and have the children decide 
whether the action is fair or unfair. Gradually 
you can lead them to see that fairness to others 
means giving them the same treatment that they 
themselves would wish. You can lead the children 
to see a real basic meaning for the golden rule. 

Consideration 

A child of this age is beginning to be able to 
put himself in the place of another. He knows 
that if he strikes another, that child feels just 
as he would feel if he were struck. This is a 
good time, then, to cultivate a feeling of con- 
sideration toward those who are weaker and 
toward those who are unfortunate in any manner. 
A boy should be made to feel that the stronger 
he is, the more he should make it his business 
not to treat roughly a boy weaker than he. And, 
above all, children should be shown how much 
better it is to have consideration for a cripple, 
a physically weak child, or a child having any 
physical defect, than it is to make it harder for 
that child by teasing or by rough treatment. 
Try to have the children describe what it must 
be like to be blind, to be lame, to be deformed, 



52 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

to stutter, or the like. This will help the children 
to obtain a different viewpoint. They should 
be led to feel that as these unfortunates must 
have a very bad time of it, even under the best 
of conditions, a healthy boy or girl should do all 
possible to make life pleasanter for those who 
are so unfortunate. Historical stories of men 
who have been blind, or crippled, or equally 
unfortunate in some manner, and yet have been 
wonderfully successful, should be told the children. 
The great poet Milton was blind, writing his 
best when so handicapped; Peter Stuyvesant had 
a wooden leg. The wonderful example of Helen 
Keller, who is deaf, dumb, and blind, can be made 
stimulating. Under this head respect for parents 
and for elders can be brought in again. 

Self-Control 

Have the children tell what unpleasant results 
come from losing one's temper. Let them tell 
of instances where the losing of temper brought 
misfortune of some kind. Gradually develop, 
in this manner, the idea that, first of all, the 
person who loses his or her temper usually looks 
ridiculous, and, second, that the person losing 
his temper is no match for an antagonist who 
is cool. The boxer who loses his temper, for 
instance, is lost. In case of danger it is the self- 
controlled person who saves the day. Tell 



EIGHT YEARS 53 

stories, or have the children read simple stories, 
if possible, of persons who have done great deeds 
through having self-control, and of those who 
have had ill fortune from its lack. 

Hand-Work 

Children of this age, as well as younger ones, 
should have plenty of pleasant hand-work. It 
should be something which they can enjoy, and 
which will also develop the qualities of patience 
and accuracy. Basketry is appropriate; making 
miniature houses or cities is useful. Simple 
manual training might be begun. The usual 
type of elementary manual training cannot be 
too severely condemned. This consists in making 
round flower-sticks, or planing an oblong piece 
of wood accurately, or making a joint of some 
kind between two pieces of wood — a very foolish 
waste of time, from the standpoint of the average 
boy. A boy, if he wants to make anything at 
all, wants to make something practical or useful. 
It may be a simple thing like a box, or a bench, 
or a small toy boat, or a kite, or what not. Well, 
let him follow his own desires, as far as is prac- 
ticable. This making of miter joints, and dove- 
tail joints at the beginnings of manual training 
is a delusion and a snare which seems to have 
captured the whole manual training faculty. 
It may be very well for boys in manual training 



54 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

high-schools, but the Uttle chaps need encourage- 
ment. Their work must be interesting in itself. 
As for the girls, let them also make what they 
desire, if possible. Constructive effort, especially 
if from within, is of immense value in the develop- 
ment of character. 

Games and Plans 

Games for children of this age, and earher ages, 
should be those that develop accuracy, quick 
co-ordination, persistency, the spirit of competi- 
tion, and physical grace and vigor. Individual 
dance movements are excellent, as are common 
games like ring-toss, battledore and shuttlecock, 
slapping and jumping games, tag, throwing at a 
mark. 



CHAPTER III 

Children of Nine Years 

Children of nine years begin to take interest in 
hero stories. This interest may be used to advan- 
tage by taking the history of some appropriate 
hero to illustrate different simple virtues. 

Courage, Trustworthiness, Patriotism 

These three qualities are well illustrated in the 
one story of Leonidas. In giving the model 
stories that follow, it is to be remembered that 
they are not worded exactly as they may be 
told to children, but they can be used for founda- 
tions of stories which the teachers will word 
according to the ability of their children to under- 
stand. 

The Story of Leonidas 

A little over two thousand years ago, there lived, in 
a country called Greece, a king named Leonidas, 
which means "son of a lion" — a name which fitted him 
very well, as you will see. Greece was a very small 
country, and it was divided into several small states, 
just as this country is divided into states, only the 
Greek states were independent of each other, and some 
of them had kings. Leonidas was king of a state 
called Sparta. 

(55) 



56 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Now, although there was not a very great number 
of Greeks altogether, they were a very remarkable 
people. They had jQne schools, beautiful buildings, 
and wrote wonderful poems and plays. They thought 
it a good thing to have as strong a body as possible, 
so that the government would take charge of the boys 
at a very early age, and see to it that they were given 
an excellent physical development. Then the young 
men went into many kinds of athletics, so that the 
Greeks were models of strength and beauty. In some 
other countries of that time most of the people were 
slaves, who belonged to an emperor. In Persia, for 
instance, there was an emperor named Xerxes, and 
most of his people were slaves. The emperor and the 
nobles had the slaves to fight their battles for them, 
and often had to drive them into the fight with whips. 
But the Greeks were free men, and no man's slaves. 
They were very proud of their country and loved it 
well. They would have no man fight their battles for 
them, for each man was only too glad to fight for his 
country when necessary. 

Well, Xerxes, the powerful emperor of the great 
country of Persia, resolved to capture Greece and 
make the Greeks his slaves as he had other peoples. 
And so he came against Greece with a vast army, 
three hundred thousand strong. It seemed that 
nothing could stop him. It was just the time of the 
year when the Greeks held their religious festivals, 
and they were very religious and would let nothing 
interfere with their worship. 

The wise Greeks knew very well the strength of the 



NINE YEARS 57 

great army of Persians descending upon their land. 
All the armies of Greece combined would not have 
been half so large as the army of Xerxes. So all the 
little Greek states had a council, for Xerxes must be 
stopped, and yet the religious festivals must be kept. 
Finally, they sent away Leonidas, King of Sparta, 
with three hundred brave Spartan soldiers, and with 
them went three thousand other soldiers. They were 
going to Thermopylae, a narrow pass between moun- 
tains and the sea, and there, in that narrow passage, 
they were going to try to check and hold back the 
great army of Persians. 

So Leonidas and his splendid men went quickly to 
the narrow pass, resolved to hold back the Persians 
till the religious festivals were over and the Greek 
armies could come to his aid. Thermopylae was a 
very narrow pass indeed, for on one side was a steep 
mountain, and on the other was the marshy shore of 
the sea, and the passage between was so narrow that 
two wagons could not pass each other there. And at 
this place Leonidas made ready to withstand the 
powerful army of the enemy. 

Xerxes knew pretty well the fighting power of the 
Greeks, so he sent them first a summons to give up 
their arms. But the only answer Leonidas sent back 
was, "Come and take them!" 

Leonidas and his men felt that they had been given 
a great and terrible trust — ^to hold the pass against the 
Persians at all costs; and they resolved to die rather 
than betray their trust or give up the fight from fear. 
Said one Greek soldier to another: "There are so many 



58 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Persian bowmen that their arrows will darken the 
sun!" "Very well," said another, "we will fight in 
the shade then!" 

At last the thousands and thousands of Persians 
came, and rushed furiously upon Leonidas and his 
little body of men. But it was like a wave at the 
shore beating upon a rock. The Persians were thrown 
back again and again, and yet again. The Greeks 
did not give way an inch! The Persians had to be 
driven, like the slaves they were, into the fight with 
whips, but to no avail. At last, in despair, Xerxes 
hurled against them his finest and best men; these 
were the flower of his army and were called the "Ten 
Thousand Immortals." But these, too, were thrown 
back, like waves from a rock. It was a wonderful 
battle, a hundred against one. The Greeks could 
easily have retreated and saved themselves, but they 
could not be moved. 

For two days the battle continued with defeat for 
the Persians; then a traitor went to Xerxes and 
showed his men a secret path across the mountain. 
Suddenly Leonidas was informed that the Persians 
were descending the mountain behind him. He knew 
then that all was lost, and that all who remained 
would be killed. He gave his allies permission to go 
and save themselves; but for the Spartans themselves 
there was to be no retreat. Their countrymen had 
entrusted the post to them, and they would far rather 
die than retreat. So most of the allies ran away, but 
seven hundred Thespians remained with him, preferring 
death to the dishonor of deserting Leonidas, Then 



NINE YEARS 59 

came the last teriffic battle. Leonidas and his heroes 
fought desperately, but were so crushed by the enor- 
mous numbers that poured upon them, that they died, 
to the last man. 

That was many centuries ago, and yet through all 
those years Leonidas and his men have stood out as 
heroes of the highest rank — men who loved their country 
better than life, and who would far rather die than 
betray the trust their country had given them. 

Like Leonidas we should courageously face any 
misfortune that comes to us, especially all the little 
daily troubles that do not amount to anything anyway; 
and we should also be trustworthy at all times. 

It might be a good plan to contrast Leonidas 
with the boy or girl who makes a great fuss over 
small things, and who cannot be trusted. The 
idea of trust should be developed by practice. 
The writer once went into a class room in one 
of the largest public schools of St. Louis — a school 
in the poorer section of the city. In the room 
was a large class, working quietly and indus- 
triously. They were cMldren of nine or ten 
years of age. They were tending strictly to their 
own affairs, and no teacher was in the room at 
that time! The teacher should make a point 
of trusting her pupils in little things. 

Persistency 

It is very difficult for children, and sometimes 
for their elders, to keep at a certain task till it 



60 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

is accomplished. Yet persistency is a most 
valuable and necessary accomplishment, if we 
are to have success in anything. Children are 
apt to attend to one matter with great intensity 
for a short time, and then fly to another. The 
habit is a very bad one. It must be remem- 
bered also that as persistency is an acquired 
habit, and must be developed by degrees, too 
much must not be expected of young children, 
and excessive driving, in fact, any driving at 
all, is likely to make matters worse. True 
persistency, like many other virtues, to be real 
and effective, must come from the inside — ^not 
the outside. 

Make the children understand just what is 
meant by the term. By means of stories show 
them the value of sticking at a thing. A story 
might be told, for instance, of a boy who thought 
he would like to be a carpenter. So he began 
to learn carpentering, and, after a few months, 
tired of it and thought he would be a grocer. 
So he got a position driving a grocer-wagon and 
working in the store. Then he dropped this 
to take up something else, and dropped this one 
also for another, and so on, till the boy, finally 
a grown man, had a habit opposite to that of 
persistency, could not keep a position, knew little 
about any one kind of work, and so lived miser- 
ably. Then they might be told stories of historic 



NINE YEARS 61 

characters who, through persistent effort, have 
accomplished great things. This lesson is just 
a Httle difficult for children of nine, but some 
seed may be sown at this time, and the lesson 
repeated, more and more strongly, for several 
years. 

Columbus 

Over four hundred and fifty years ago there was a 
young Italian sea captain who had very remarkable 
ideas. In those days people thought that the world 
was flat, much like a vast table, and that if you got 
near the edge, you were in danger of falling off! 
So they did not venture far westward on the Atlantic 
Ocean, for fear that they would never get back again. 
You see they feared they would come to the end of 
the earth and that something dreadful would happen. 
Everyone believed this to be the case. But this young 
sea captain thought differently. First of all, he had 
been to sea and doubtless saw that when a ship was far 
away its hull could not be seen, and that when it was 
further away, only the tops of the sails could be seen. 
So it seemed very certain to him that the world was 
round, and not flat. Then besides this, he had read a 
great deal what one or two clever geographers had 
written on the subject, and he had studied many 
months over the problem. He was absolutely sure 
that the world was round, and that, if he sailed west, 
he would come to a marvelously rich country that lay 
east of Asia — an island of which he had heard, and 
which we now call Japan. 

But this young captain was not a rich man. He 



62 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

could not afford to buy a boat and go westward across 
the ocean to see if what he beheved was true, and if 
there was a rich land on the other side. So he tried to 
find some one who would help him, and perhaps let 
him have a ship and men. 

But every one he Icnew made fun of him, and rid- 
iculed him, and declared he must be out of his mind 
to think that the world was round, when every one 
knew it was fiat! They would not even lend him any 
money, for who would lend money to a man thought 
to be half crazy? For not only was he sure to lose the 
money, but his life as well. 

So he went to learned men, men who were thought 
to be very wise. But they would not listen to him, 
and sent him away. He went to powerful noblemen, 
but they were ignorant, and made fun of him, and 
sent him away again. 

He went to kings and wealthy countries, but they 
were too busy having wars to think of him. They 
would not even listen to him. 

Many men would have been discouraged, and would 
have given up the great idea. How many times will 
a boy in school try to do an example in arithmetic 
when he has failed the first time, and the second time? 
How many times will a man who has lost his business 
try to build it up again? IMen and boys too, soon 
become discouraged. But this sea captain did not 
become discouraged. He became poorer and poorer, 
and yet he went on from place to place, hoping that 
some rich and powerful person would listen to him and 
help him. But no one did. For seventeen years this 



NINE YEARS 63 

poor man kept up his courage, and tried again and 
again and again. No one ever listened to him, and 
yet he kept on hoping that some fortune would come 
to him some time soon. 

Finally, one evening, when he with his young son, 
who was nearly famished for want of bread, stopped at 
a convent door to ask for a little food, they were taken 
in. A good man listened to all the sea captain had to 
say, and being very wise, he felt sure that the captain 
was right. So this good man, head of the little con- 
vent, saw to it that the captain was introduced into 
the greatest court in the world, that of Spain. 

The king of Spain listened very politely, but did not 
do anything, and this, of course, was very discouraging. 
But finally the queen, Isabella, listened to all he had 
to say, and came to believe that the captain was right, 
and that a rich land could actually be found by sailing 
westward over the Atlantic. But even then there 
were disappointments, for the king, Ferdinand, and 
his queen, Isabella, were waging a very costly war, and 
did not have a great deal of money to risk in this 
fashion. But at last Isabella sold some of her jewels, 
and then there was money enough to pay for the trip. 

But all was not well yet, for the ignorant people 
were sure that the world ended a little way out on the 
ocean, and it was hard to get enough sailors for the 
three little ships. Finally, men from the prisons had 
to be taken, and with these three little ships, and poor 
crew, the captain at last set sail for the west. But 
even yet there was trouble and hardship. Most 
captains would have given up the trip and have 



64 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

returned home before many days, because the crew 
became frightened and were almost ready to fight Avith 
the captain. But he kept on and on, and finally, sure 
enough, he reached land, and proved that he was 
right, and of course, when he arrived back in Spain, 
there was a great celebration and many rewards. 
When he came to the king and the queen, they made 
him sit on the throne with them. Of course you know 
that captain's name. It was Christopher Columbus. 

So, whenever you have a piece of work to do and 
you fail or find it very hard, keep at it, and keep at it, 
and do it again and again, and keep on trying until, 
like Columbus, you have won. And you have no idea 
how good it feels to win a fight like that. It is a dozen 
times better, a hundred times better, than giving in 
weakly, and getting some one else to do the work for 
you! 

Other Stories 

The two previous stories give an idea how cer- 
tain lives can be made to illustrate certain simple 
virtues. Others will be thought of naturally. 
The lives of Franklin and of Peter the Great 
might be used, for instance, to illustrate self- 
help and patriotism. Self-help may be developed 
through other means also. 

Self-Help 

The regular school work may be made very 
useful in developing the idea of self-help. 



NINE YEARS 65 

If you want to make your arms strong, what do you 
do? Why you exercise your arms, of course. But 
suppose you are lazy and get some one else to exercise 
his arms instead. What good will that do your arms? 
Suppose you want to be a good runner. What would 
people think of you if you tried to get another boy to 
do your running for you? People would think you 
were very silly to have such a foolish idea. Of course 
you know very well that you must exercise your arms 
yourself if you want them to get strong. And you 
know quite well that you must do your own running if 
you want to be a good runner. 

Well, it is just like that with lessons. If you want 
to have a good, strong mind, your mind has to do its 
own work. We exercise our minds by giving them 
lessons to do. When a mind works hard at lessons it 
is much like an arm working hard with some exercise. 
The exercise makes the arm strong, and the lessons 
make the mind better. But do you think you can 
make your mind strong — do you think you can exer- 
cise it — by having some one else do the work? That is 
just as silly as trying to get strong arms by having 
another fellow lift the dumb-bells, isn't it? So the 
only thing to do is to do your own lessons. If you get 
some one else to do your lesson for you, what good is 
that? You are given lessons to use in exercising your 
mind. That is the important thing. To bring to 
school well-prepared lessons is not the thing at all; 
that is not half so important as working at those 
lessons yourself. 

Do your own work, and do not let any one do it for 



66 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

you. It is a hundred times better to bring in a lesson 
half done, if you have done that half yourself, than to 
bring it in all done, and have it done by some one else! 

Generally speaking, there should be no home 
work at all for young children, perhaps not before 
the fourteenth year. It is better for children to 
do their preparation where the teacher can encour- 
age them to fight their own battles. 

Modesty 

Modesty covers more than one field, and appro- 
priate lessons should be developed for the benefit 
of each. 

Have you ever seen a peacock? It is very likely, 
if you have visited a *'Zoo." In spring, summer, or 
early fall, is a good time to see him, for then he lives 
out of doors and struts about the grass. When all by 
himself he seems to do little but search for food, but if 
anyone comes near, he begins to strut and spreads his 
beautiful tail as wide as he can, and is so proud that he 
can hardly walk. He seems to be afraid that you will 
not notice how handsome he is. Perhaps, if he is feel- 
ing very good, he will sing a little, and I think you -^dll 
agree that it is the very worst voice you ever heard in 
your life — almost as bad as a rusty hinge! He is a 
fine-looking bird, but when it comes to singing — to 
actually doing something fine — why, he is a dismal 
failure. If he were not so fine-looking, perhaps we 



NINE YEARS 67 

should not expect so much; but to look at him you 
would think he would have a beautiful voice. But he 
hasn't; he is all show. 

Have you ever heard a song sparrow, or a vesper 
sparrow? They have wonderfully sweet voices and 
songs. But have you ever seen them? Not very often, 
I am sure, because they are very modest, wear very 
plain colors, and hide shyly in the trees. If you saw 
one of them you would think that he did not amoxmt 
to much; but when he sang you would be surprised 
and delighted. The bird does not look as though he 
were worth very much, and yet when it comes to doing 
anything worth while, he is many times superior to 
the majestic peacock, which can do nothing but strut 
about and screech like a rusty hinge. 

Lots of people are like those two birds. When you 
see a man or a boy or a girl putting on a lot of airs and 
paying a lot of attention to clothes so that he or she 
looks very fine, don't be fooled by them. It is very 
probable that he or she does not amount to much 
when it comes to doing anything. You will generally 
find that the more airs a person has, the less brains he 
has. A woman who is really beautiful does not have 
to wear gaudy clothes to look beautiful; in fact she 
looks more beautiful the more plainly she is dressed. 
When you see a girl wearing a lot of gaudy ribbons 
and fancy things, you may be sure that she does not 
think she is very good-looking and is trying to hide 
the fact from you by dazzling you with her fine things. 
Just like the peacock who, by means of his handsome 
plumage, tries to make you think he is very fine. But 
fine feathers do not make fine birds! 



t5S CK^RACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Again, if yoii nre very clover, you will never say 
anything about it; becau!>e you will know that when a 
follow tolls you how clever ho is, it is very probable 
that he is not clover at all ami is trying to hide the 
fact by making a show. The children who do best at 
school do not brag about it, if they are wise, for they 
know that braggors are not usually doers. 

Show in a similar manner how a modest person 
will be careful of the language he uses, and of his 
beha\'ior in public places. 

Manners 

This should be an extension and repetition of 
the preN^ous lesson on manners, and can be linked 
witJi lessons on modesty and respect; for they 
are all intimately connected. Again, one may 
ask the children how they would act in certain 
cases, having the class criticize each answer. In 
this manner childi-en can be shown how to act 
under the various conditions, taking up manners 
on the street, in public conveyances, at home, 
at the table, in the presence of elders, and the 
like. Two or three children may be encouraged 
to act little impromptu parts before the class, 
illustrating common lapses of good manners, and 
haAing the class endeavor to point out all such 
lapses. Under this head also may be taken up 
choice of words, to give an idea of what is meant 
by refinement as shown in language. 



NINE YEARS 69 

For lessons on good manners to be effective, 
it is absolutely necessary for the teacher to dis- 
play good manners on all occasions, however 
trying. The teacher who remains calm and pohte 
under stress, not only wins the admiration of her 
class, but teaches the lessons of manners with 
telling effect. The teacher who loses her temper 
quickly and says a lot of hard things to the 
culprit, pounds the desk, and so on, only makes 
herself look ridiculous if she attempts to talk 
about good manners. It is vitally necessary for 
a teacher to practice what she preaches. 
- It should be made clear that ill manners are 
not a sign of independence, as many seem to 
think, but of ignorance. The impolite person 
either knows no better or else does not know the 
very meaning of poUteness, thinking independence 
is shown by neglecting these forms of courtesy. 
The lesson on manners in different forms should 
be given several times during the year. American 
children are supposed to be bad-mannered, and 
possibly the reputation is deserved. The schools, 
however, can do almost all that is necessary to 
alter the situation. Only be it remembered that 
there must be a right feeUng behind the form, or 
else it will be valueless. The school must develop 
the feeling as well as show and insist upon the 
form. ' 



70 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Gratitude 

Children are apt to consider all benefits re- 
ceived as their just due. They should be shown 
why they should be grateful to their parents for 
the care they have had from infancy, to the 
teacher for her efforts to give them knowledge, 
and to the city and country for providing oppor- 
tunities and protection of many kinds. Gratitude 
can be shown by respect, by good manners, by 
obedience, consideration, etc. 

Did you ever notice how helpless a little baby is? 
It cannot do an>i;hing for itself at all. A baby chicken 
can do much more than a hmnan baby can, for as soon 
as the little chicken is hatched from its shell it walks 
about, scratches, and looks for food. But a himian 
baby cannot walk at all. A very young one cannot 
even creep. It cannot talk. It cannot tell you when 
it is hungry, when it is cold or hot or in pain. It can 
cry, but you cannot tell what for. It can do nothing 
at all for itself. It needs to be cared for all the time, 
for many, many months, or else it will die. 

Did you ever think how hard it must be for a mother 
to care for her baby all these months? And then, 
you know, when the baby is able to creep around, 
and even when it can walk a little, it must be watched 
just as much, or it may fall down the stairs, get into 
the fire, eat dangerous things, or have some serious 
accident. 

Now one time you were a little baby just like that. 
Every day for months and months, and for year after 



NINE YEARS 71 

year, your mother and your father cared for you, and 
watched you. Now you are big and strong, and can 
do many things for yourself. But how should you feel 
towards your mother and father for their long care of 
you? 

A mother and a father always think of the day when 
the little child they cared for so long shall grow big 
and strong and be a comfort to them. There is little 
that pleases a mother or a father so much as having 
a child show appreciation for what has been done. 
Some boys and some girls seem to be very ignorant. 
They do not seem to know how much their parents 
have done for them, and so they speak angrily or 
impolitely to them, and disobey them. I dare say 
nothing in the world hurts a parent so much as having 
a child treat a mother or a father in such a manner. 

But if you are a bright boy or girl, if you understand 
all these things, then you will be particularly careful 
of your parents. You will try to please them to help 
make up for the years of care they have given you. 
You will always speak politely and mildly to them. 
Perhaps, if you are very bright, when a parent tells 
you to do some disagreeable thing, you will be able to 
know that you are asked to do so for your own good, 
and you will do it without a mm-mur. It takes real 
courage to do that. We do not like to do disagreeable 
things. It is hard. But it is worth while to do some- 
thing very hard, and often, too, to help repay your 
mother or your father for all those years of care, and 
for the years yet to come when they will watch over 
you and try to keep you from danger. 

When you see a boy or a girl who honors his or her 



72 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

parents, then you see a child who is going to do well 
in this world, because gratitude shows a true and strong 
heart and a fine character. 

Illustrate in a similar manner, using, possibly, 
the ''school" ideas of the first lesson, why grat- 
itude should be shown the city for providing 
schools and protection of various kinds. Then 
describe how gratitude can be shown under 
various circumstances. 

After a few days ask the children to write on 
paper the reasons why they should be grateful to 
their parents, and in how many ways they can 
show this gratitude. Ask them to report happen- 
ings they have seen which deserve gratitude, and 
how they would show it. 

Friends and Companions 

It is difficult to make a very strong appeal to 
children of this age on this subject, but a begin- 
ning can be made, and the matter enlarged upon 
later. 

Perhaps you have noticed that the same kind of 
people usually go together. There is an old saying 
that "like attracts Uke." This is certainly so wnth 
men and women, and boys and girls. If you know a 
boy who is strong and manly, you will notice that 
other strong and manly boys go with him and come 
to him, and want to play with him. Then, too, if you 



NINE YEARS 73 

know a boy who is really a bad boy, you will notice 
that other bad boys naturally go with him and want to 
play with him. It seems that good attracts good, and 
that bad attracts bad. 

Ask the children which is harder, to be bad or 
to be good, and why. You can thus develop the 
idea that it takes more strength and ^^ nerve" to 
be good than to be bad. 

Suppose you know a boy who is a fine manly fellow, 
and suppose that he knows a boy who is of a bad sort. 
What will happen? First of all, remember, other bad 
fellows will come naturally to play with that one bad 
one, so that the manly boy will have a number of 
companions who are not good at all. What is the 
result? Well, these bad fellows naturally want the 
good fellow to do what they do. Perhaps at first the 
boy is strong enough to keep clean and manly despite 
them, but it is easier to be bad than to be good, you 
know, so it is very likely that he will become weaker 
and weaker, and finally become a bad boy himself, 
and good for nothing. 

But suppose, on the other hand, that though he were 
not very good himself, he went with a boy who was a 
really fine fellow. Of course, then, other fine fellows 
would play with them. The result would be that it 
would be easy for him to become better and better, 
and so become quite as good as his companions. 

So you see it depends on what kind of friends you 
have what you will become. And that is why, too. 



74 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

if you want to know what kind of boy a certain boy is, 
all you have to do is to see what kind of boy he plays 
with, and then you will know just what he is. 

You should be very careful in making friends and 
companions. If you play with fire long enough you 
will get burnt, and if you play with pitch you are almost 
sure to get stained. And if you go with bad friends 
and companions you will be almost sure to become 
like them. 

So if you wish to be a fine, strong, clean, successful 
man or woman, then you must go with companions 
who will help you by being clean and strong too. 

Tell stories of men who have been aided in 
noble careers by friends, and of others who owe 
their downfall to their friends. 

Have the children report friendly acts they 
have seen, and let them write a composition upon 
the qualities a true friend should have. 

Cleanliness, Bodily and Mental 

As in a previous lesson, bodily cleanliness 
should be made a point of, and the requiring of a 
reasonable amount of cleanliness of the children in 
the class should be the rule. A boy who comes to 
class with dirty face and hands should be made 
to wash before the class, if warnings prove 
unavailing. In persistent cases the parents should 
receive notification. Children at this age can 
understand a little physiology; so simple studies 



NINE YEARS 75 

of the skin, ears, eyes, etc., may be made and the 
value of cleanHness emphasized. 

There was a boy who had a clock, and a fine-looldng 
one it was. For a while that clock went very well, 
and everyone could depend upon it. It seemed to be 
on time always. But one day the boy was careless, 
and let a little dust get into the inside of it. Then 
the clock did not go so well. Some people, one day, 
depended upon that clock and missed an important 
matter, and were very angry. So the boy took some 
chalk-powder and a rag and polished that clock till 
it shone. So when people saw it they would say, 
''What a fine-looking clock! It must keep correct 
time because it looks so bright!" But the fact is that 
very often the clock deceived them, for now it would 
run a little fast, and now a little slow, and now and then 
that careless boy would let a little more dust get in, 
and then it would be worse than ever. 

Every time he got into trouble with it, he would 
give it a good polishing, till folks thought it looked sc 
fine that it must be a good clock; but it went as badly 
as ever and, what is more, became worse and worse. 
No matter how he polished the outside, those works 
went more and more irregularly. What was the 
matter with that clock? Well, it is very simple. You 
can answer. There was some dirt in the works, and 
that is what the matter was! There was dirt in the 
works, and no matter how the boy polished the outside, 
it did not help the works. 

Finally, one day, the boj'' got into such awful 



76 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

trouble on account of that clock that he took the back 
out and cleaned the works — just as he should have 
done in the first place. And then, of course, the clock 
went better; but it was worn out sooner than it would 
have been, because the wheels were used up trying to 
go through all that dirt. 

Now who can tell just what I mean by that clock? 
I mean the boy's mind, of course! A boy or a girl 
may look as fine as possible outside, and yet be good 
for nothing at all if there is anything wrong inside 
the mind. If a boy or a girl has a clean mind, then you 
may be sure of its working well. That boy or girl 
can be trusted, and life will seem very pleasant. But 
if any one lets even a little dust and dirt get into the 
mind, then its work becomes harder and harder; 
it does more and more poorly, till no one can trust, 
and life seems very dreary and unpleasant. 

So if you want to be bright and cheery, and happy, 
and strong, and healthy, and to make others happy 
around you, then keep the works clean! 

Physical Culture 

A great number of topics really come under 
this head — topics which at first sight seem to 
have no connection with it. But all students of 
child psychology realize how closely the physical, 
the mental, and the moral are related. What 
affects one affects the other two. With boys 
particularly, a love for physical expression, so to 
speak, is the most common as well as the strong- 



NINE YEARS 77 

est characteristic just before and during the 
adolescent age. The work about to be outHned 
can affect the boys of nine years only slightly, 
but when the same program is continued with 
them as they develop, becoming broader each 
year, an appeal is made which is very powerful 
and effective. 

The boys of nine years of age and over may 
be given a talk in a body, or, better still, in 
groups according to psychological age. That is, 
one group would be from nine to twelve inclusive, 
another from thirteen to fifteen. This schedule, 
being planned for the primary- and grammar- 
school ages, does not consider children over fifteen 
years of age. The talk mentioned should be 
given, if possible, by some one not connected 
directly with the school. Its object should be to 
give the boys an interest in the general subject 
of physical culture, by showing the advantages of 
having a fine and strong physique, as well as the 
disadvantages of a poor one. An effective appeal 
is the displaying of enlarged photographs, or 
lantern-pictures, of boys having perfect physiques. 
Then a competition may be announced, a prize 
of honor being offered for the boy or boys who 
improve most physically during the school year. 

This method of competition gives the best 
chance to the poorly developed boy, who naturally 
is able to improve more than a physically able 



78 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

boy. As this would eliminate, or nearl}^ eliminate, 
the boy already blessed with a good physique, 
there should be another prize or honor offered 
the boy who has the best physique, age consid- 
ered, at the end of the school year. 

It should be announced that the winners of the 
two competitions will be photographed, so as 
to show their muscular development, and these 
photographs will be hung permanently under a 
school banner. In case several schools are using 
this system, the winners of the several independ- 
ent schools might compete for a district or city 
championship. 

This plan utilizes the strongest natural inclina- 
tions of a normal boy, one being to take interest 
in his physical strength and development, and the 
other to engage in anything competitive. 

All the boys going into the ''competition" 
should be measured physically, stripped to the 
waist. As carried out in Philadelphia, the follow- 
ing notes were taken of each boy : height, weight, 
shoulder-girth, chest (expanded and contracted), 
arms (extended and contracted), age, grade, and 
a few remarks concerning school history. Meas- 
urements should be taken again in the late spring, 
and the winners chosen according to the percentage 
of increase of measurements. 

The next thing is to organize all the boys who 
have been measured into a League. Where the 



NINE YEARS 79 

school systems do not regularly measure all the 
children, only those should be taken who volun- 
teer. Then the League will be voluntary, and 
probably more effective than if it were a compul- 
sory affair. 

There are three grades of members in this 
League. First, there are the Third-Class members 
who have ordinary physique, or who are below 
normal. The Second-Class members are those 
who have a good physique and whose school 
standing is satisfactory. The First-Class mem- 
bers are those who have a really first-class 
physique and whose school standing is satisfac- 
tory. 

The members of the League in each class 
choose a Class Captain for a term of three 
months. To be eligible for this office a boy must 
have either a first or second-class rank. A cap- 
tain cannot serve two successive terms. The 
class captains form a School Council. The 
School Captain should be a man who has charge 
of the school athletics, if possible, or a man 
interested in boys, understanding them, and 
capable of handling them. This Council considers 
all matters pertaining to the League, each class 
captain representing the desires of a majority of 
his class-members. 

In Philadelphia, where this plan is being tried 
out, the League gives an opportunity for organiz- 



80 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

ing the outdoor activities of the boys — some- 
thing pecuHarly necessary in cities. It is one 
thing to lecture boys about corner-loafing, and it 
is another thing to offer a good substitute for it. 
In Philadelphia young athletes from the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania act as school captains, 
organize school leagues into clubs for different 
activities — hiking clubs, general athletic clubs, 
natural history clubs, and the Uke. It is also 
the plan to form occupational or vocational clubs 
for the boys who expect to go to work as soon as 
they leave the grammar school, or before, the 
object of these clubs being to give the boys as 
much information concerning the different occupa- 
tions as possible. For the boy who must work at 
an early age, the vocational problem is a serious 
one. It is the object of these clubs to help a 
boy to choose the work for which he is best fitted, 
and to aid in fitting him for that work. 

In Philadelphia the League members wear a 
distinctive pin — a shght difference in the pin 
showing whether a boy is an ordinary member or 
Second-Class or First-Class. 

As many boys as possible are encouraged to 
join the Boy Scouts, which fine organization, if 
it does not follow the fate of so many American 
organizations and become commercialized, will be 
of immense help in raising the morale of the 
average boy. 



NINE YEARS 81 

The League, and the non-members with it, can 
be given talks concerning things which will affect 
their physical development favorably or mifavor- 
ably. If this work is done carefully, the boys 
will be very anxious to learn concerning such mat- 
ters, and will, to a large extent, act upon such 
advice as seems good to them. 

Generally speaking, it is often fatal to say of a 
thing that it is wrong, in speaking to children of 
this age. Wrong to them usually means the 
forbidden, and little more. The impassioned 
speaker who gets up before an audience of boys 
and declaims upon the wickedness of smoking 
cigarettes might just as well save his energy for 
something more useful. The average boy Ustens 
to such harangues with inward sarcasm and often 
amusement, and smokes again at the earliest 
possible moment in pure bravado. But the 
smoking of cigarettes is a serious problem, and 
must be handled. The writer has foimd that 
about 70 per cent, of boys in a typical city slum 
school use tobacco habitually, and fully 45 per 
cent, of the boys of a typical grammar school of 
the better class. Generally speaking, the laws 
affecting the sale of tobacco to minors are not 
effective, generally because the laws themselves 
are poorly planned and often very difficult to 
enforce. It is difficult to find and punish the man 
who sells tobacco to a boy. A simple matter is 



82 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

to have a regulation providing for the fining of 
any boy found using tobacco, the fine being 
remitted if the boy can furnish evidence leading 
to the conviction of the person who sold it to him, 
bought it for him, or gave it to him. Such a 
regulation, I believe, is already in force in several 
states and should be in all. 

The most effective way of approaching boys on 
the subject of smoking, as well as on many 
others, is through the physical. When the boys 
have become enthusiastic concerning their physi- 
cal development, they can be told that boys who 
smoke will not cease to grow, but that it is 
exceedingly likely that they will not gain quite so 
much as the boys who do not use tobacco. The 
boys want to gain. There is a competition, with 
a fair show for every one, and a prize at the end 
worth having. And all normal boys want to 
grow anyway. 

This method of appeal has been found effective. 
Through similar means other bad habits may be 
attacked successfully, and even such matters as 
coffee-drinking, corner-lounging, and keeping late 
bed-hours. Also, the members of the League may 
be encouraged to ''train" like college fellows, 
and such ''training" means much that is good. 

As has been said, this whole physical system 
can be only begun with the nine-year-old boys, 
but it can be carried out with great completeness 



NINE YEARS 83 

with tMrteen- and fourteen-year boys. Further, 
the mere fact that the older boys of the school 
accept such things whole-heartedly, has a power- 
ful effect upon the younger ones. 

The normal boy's love of competition, of physi- 
cal expression and athletic sports, puts a powerful 
lever in the hand of the educator, which can be 
used to great advantage in helping the boy in his 
character building. 

Government 

Children of nine are too young to be able to 
understand much concerning technical theories 
of government. But many simple and fun- 
damental ideas can be made quite clear to them, 
forming a foundation for future work. 

There are some places where it must be very impleas- 
ant to live. Such a place may be in the wilds of 
Australia, the jungles of the Amazon in South America, 
or in the unexplored places in Africa. In these places 
live small tribes of savages. Perhaps there may be no 
more than a dozen or two dozen persons in a tribe. 
They have little to wear, for they have to make all 
that they use, and they are too ignorant to be able to 
make much. These people fight with bows and arrows 
and spears. The arrow-heads and spear-heads are 
probably made of a hard stone called flint. It takes 
a long time for a savage to make a good arrow-head 
or a spear-head. And then, when he has it made, some 



84 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

stronger savage may come along and take it from him, 
and take anything else of his that he wants, if he is 
strong enough. And the other poor fellow can do 
nothing, for there is no one to protect him. In fact, 
he is lucky if the strong man does not kill him, too, 
for there is no one to prevent. In those places the 
strong can take from the weak, and there is no one to 
protect the weak. 

A tribe, if it likes, may have its fighting-men creep 
up near another little tribe in the night, and, when the 
other tribe is asleep, the first tribe may rush at them 
and perhaps kill the men and take the rest for slaves. 
They can do so if they are strong enough. There is 
no one to punish them. 

The a, too, some terrible disease may attack a tribe, 
and the poor people may begin to die, one after the 
other. And there is no one to help them. If another 
tribe hears that they are dying, they will probably 
come, and, because they are weak, kill all that are left 
and steal their goods. And there is no one to stop 
them, and no one to punish them. 

It may be, too, that a tribe is intelligent enough to 
plant seed and raise a little crop of grain. But another 
tribe, if strong enough, can come and carry off all the 
grain. The tribe that planted it will be glad to get 
away alive, and no one will punish the thieves. Or, 
again, should the crop be ruined by storm and the 
people begin to starve for want of food, there is no one 
to help them. If they go to another tribe for help the 
other tribe will either drive them away or make slaves 
of them. It cannot be pleasant to live under such 
conditions. 



NINE YEARS 85 

We are much more fortunate than those people. 
Every now and then the people of the United States 
pick out men to represent them. It would be impos- 
sible for every man in the country to go to Washington 
and make laws for the land. So a certain number of 
people select one man from among them to do their 
bidding, and all these chosen men go to Washington. 
These men see to it that good laws are made, and that 
good order is kept in the country. If any from outside 
should come into the country and try to do any damage 
to our people, these men would see to it that the people 
were protected and that the outsiders were driven away. 
If any disturbers appeared in the country and tried to 
destroy the peace and order of the country, these men in 
Washington would see to it that they were punished. 

We do the same thing in cities. There are too many 
of us to get together and make laws for running things 
and arrangement for police, firemen, making streets, 
and the like. So in every division of the city a few 
men are picked out by the people of that division, 
and these men get together and do what must be done 
to keep the city in order. These men are our servants; 
they must manage the city for the good of all. If they 
do not, they are unfaithful and should be discharged 
and others sent in their place. These men see to it 
that there are police, and all the people pay a little 
money every year, and out of this the police are paid. 
The police see to it that we can live safely. And they 
take such good care that very few dare to steal or to 
treat anyone cruelly. A man dare not even beat a 
horse cruelly, for the police will stop him and see that 
he is punished. 



86 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

These men also see to it that there are firemen and 
good fire-engines, and that they are paid for from the 
little money that everyone pays the city each year. 
No one pays much, but when they all put together, 
it makes a very great sum. 

Then these men see to it that good streets are made, 
and that they are kept clean. They see to it that there 
are places for the sick to go to, and the very poor. 

These men form what you call a city government. 
Now let every one write down just what would happen 
in this city if the government should stop all at once! 

At the head of the city stands the Mayor. They 
choose a new mayor every few years. To become 
mayor a man must have most of the people wanting 
him. The man whom the largest number of people 
want becomes mayor, and he must see to it that all 
the laws are obeyed. The man who goes from a divi- 
sion is called a councilman, or alderman, and you should 
respect him because he stands for such a number of 
men. But the mayor stands for many divisions, so 
you should respect the mayor very much. But many, 
many cities and thousands and thousands of people 
must unite to choose one man to be President of the 
United States and see that the laws the men make in 
Washington are obeyed, and so you should respect 
the President of the United States very much indeed, 
because he represents so many people, and is the 
highest servant of the people. 

Sewing 

Sewing is of first-rate importance to all girls. 
Usually domestic science is taught in the high 



NINE YEARS 87 

school, or, perhaps, in the upper grammar grades. 
But a majority of girls do not reach those grades, 
and these need the domestic science, so called, 
more than do their more fortunate sisters. At 
nine, girls may be interested in sewing. But 
interest is largely destroyed if they cannot sew 
what they want. Sewing exercises of the usual 
kind are a bore to most little girls, who would 
rather make doll dresses any day, and should 
be allowed to do so. 

Manual Training 

This is a development of the work outlined 
in the previous chapter. It is better to have a boy 
of nine or ten make a rickety, unsteady, likely-to- 
fall-any-minute table because he wanted to make 
it, than a whole wilderness of beautifully made 
miter joints, dovetails, T-joints, and the like 
just because they happened to be a part of a 
regular schedule of manual exercises. Our school 
system seems wonderfully well planned to crush 
initiative and destroy individuality. One way 
in which a boy can exercise both of these valuable 
qualities is in manual work, and he should there- 
fore be allowed as full scope as possible. If a 
boy of nine wants to make a sled, a kite, a '' push- 
mobile," or the like, feel fortunate and help him 
all you can v/ithout doing his work for him. 



88 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Nature Study 

The simplest and most effective way of begin- 
ning nature study is with botany. There are so 
many clear and easy text-books for beginners 
of this age that there should be no difficulty in 
carrying out this work. Each child should have 
a note-book in which '' specimens" can be pasted. 
It should be made clear, in the simplest manner, 
how flowers are formed, and, later, how the seeds 
develop, not neglecting the important work of 
insects. Each child, too, might have a small 
flower-pot on the window-sill, or a flower-box, 
and study the growth of some common and 
adaptable plant. 

Fairness 

Children, and boys particularly, seem to develop 
strong but very narrow ideas of justice. A boy 
will express himself very strongly against things 
he terms ''unfair." Boys group themselves 
largely according to psychological development, 
and each group seems to develop its own code 
as to what is fair and unfair. It is unfair to "tell 
tales," it is fair to take certain advantages in 
playing marbles, and unspeakably unfair to take 
others. But until a boy becomes older than the 
group we are considering, he would not con- 
sider it particularly unfair to take advantage 
of the weakness of a crippled boy, either to taunt 



NINE YEARS 89 

or to abuse him, or to mock the unfortunate with 
their infirmities. 

Children, then, possess and develop a sense 
of justice, which, though perhaps very narrow, 
forms an important foundation for educational 
work. 

Ask the children what it means to be unfair. 
By careful questioning have the class itself arrive 
at an intelligent meaning for the term. You can 
help by having them list such things as they 
think are unfair, and tell why they are so. Ask 
them why it is unfair to hit a cripple, tease a lame 
boy because he cannot run, or a boy with bad 
sight, because he wears glasses, or another because 
he has defective speech. Ask them why it is 
unfair for a large boy to abuse a smaller one, 
why it is unfair for a boy to strike a girl, for a boy 
to remain seated in a public conveyance while a 
woman or elderly person stands, and so on. 

Ask them why it is unfair to take another's 
property. With this question you can help in 
developing the idea that property represents 
labor, and that labor is the basis of all human 
activity. 

These questions will give suggestion as to 
what kinds of subjects can be touched upon under 
this head. Remember that it is infinitely better 
to have the children develop simple ideas of 
justice than it is to tell them yourself that 



90 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

such and such a thing is unjust and another just, 
without having the child do any reasoning upon 
the matter. A teacher should never forget that 
a child does not acquire education by being talked 
to, but by developing his or her own reasoning 
powers, memory, power of association, etc., from 
an impulse or stimulus coming from within rather 
than from without. 

Games and Plays 

Games and plays developing persistency and 
accuracy are desirable. Constructive work of 
any kind is excellent, as has been said under 
Hand-work. Games' developing quick co-ordina- 
tion are good also, as are the more strenuous 
games that require jumping, chasing, and the like. 



CHAPTER IV 

Children of Ten and Eleven Years 

There seems little to differentiate children of 
these two years. Of course, children do not 
develop equally. A child of twelve may be 
psychologically twelve, but sometimes he may 
by physically and psychologically fourteen. Strik- 
ing averages is not always safe practice, but it 
is the best we can do until teachers are able to 
recognize types of children and stages of psychic 
development. Placing children in classes accord- 
ing to age is, in the opinion of the best authorities 
on the subject, a very wrong procedure, especially 
after the twelfth year has been reached. Perhaps 
the time will come when children in school will be 
grouped according to physical and psychological 
development, and not merely according to chron- 
ological age. A teacher may have in her class a 
group of thirty boys approximately twelve years 
of age, but it is likely that six or eight of them 
will be physically thirteen, and one or two, per- 
haps, fourteen. She will find that these older 
boys are more troublesome than the others, and 
usually do poorer work. The average teacher 
will endeavor to use the disciplinary methods 

(91) 



92 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

appropriate for twelve-year-old boys, with disas- 
trous results, achieving little beyond making the 
boys sullen and rebellious, and giving them the 
opinion that she has singled them out unfairly. 

A teacher should make it her business to be 
able to recognize such differences of type and 
act accordingly. Until this happy stage is reached, 
however, the best we can do is to mention an 
age, and trust to it that >-' great majority of the 
children in a certain class of that average age 
approach that age physically and psychologically 
as well as chronologically. 

As has been said, however, there is much less 
difference between children of ten and eleven 
years of age, than between those of eleven and 
twelve, for instance, and for this reason they are 
grouped together in this chapter. 

It should be remembered, however, that a 
lesson given in one year should not be dropped 
and forgotten. On the other hand the teacher 
may take topics which have been given the 
children previously, and advantageously adapt 
them to the children of a little older age, so that 
the ideas originally developed may not lapse 
into forgetfulness, but be enlarged and strength- 
ened. The lessons of the previous year particu- 
larly should be repeated in a broader way for the 
benefit of these older children, developing again 
lessons on companions, manners, cleanliness, etc. 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 93 

Idea of "Representative" 

The idea of having one person represent a 
group of persons seems rather difficult for children 
to grasp, yet it is necessary for them to be able 
to do so as soon as possible in order that they may 
be prepared to take up the work in government 
that is to follow. 

A simple way to develop this idea is to have 
the class, at appropriate times, elect a representa- 
tive to act for them when opportunity presents. 
It is often well for a school to have a kind of school 
senate, consisting of representatives from the 
higher classes. To this ''senate" may be given 
the reasons for certain measures and opportunity 
allowed for discussion. Or it may be that now 
and then a class may desire a certain privilege. 
When so, let the class elect one or two representa- 
tives to request that privilege from the proper 
authorities. 

The City 

This is but a beginning of the city study, which 
culminates in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-year 
classes. Ask the children to get out their maps 
of the United States and see if they can tell what 
is similar about the location of a great majority 
of cities. Bring out the fact that they are gener- 
ally situated on rivers or bays or upon some large 
navigable body of water. That is, a city develops 



94 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

where it is because that is a convenient place for 
commerce and the general activities of a city. 

Ask the children why it is that cities develop. 
Try to get them to bring out the idea of the value 
in having people who work at connected things 
near to each other. 

Some cities grow by the sea-shore. Most of the 
sea-shore cities, as you can see in your geography, 
are on large bays or harbors. I wonder if you can tell 
why. Perhaps, years and years ago, ships found that 
harbor a convenient and safe place to go and land 
their goods, and so the shipping people built little 
houses and store-places, where the goods could be 
taken care of till they were sold or sent into the country. 

If they did a good business there, then more and more 
ships would come, and more and more houses would 
be built. That means that a lot of people would come 
to do the building work — carpenters, masons, roofers, 
and the like. Of course, now, there would have to be 
stores so that there could be places where farmers 
and mills could send their products — meats, vegetables, 
grains, cloth, hardware, and the like. 

When so many houses are being made, they have to 
have streets, and good ones too, so road-makers come 
and build the streets, and the first thing you know 
you have a little city. If the business gets better and 
better, then more and more people come. The streets 
become so long that no one cares to walk their lengths, 
so they have trolleys, and, if the city grows large 
enough, subways. 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 95 

Now, when so many people live together, many- 
wicked, men come too, and the city must see to it 
that the people are protected from thieves and other 
dangerous men. The city must see to it that streets 
are made and kept in repair, that the different companies 
do an honest business, that the people are protected 
from fire and disease as much as possible. Then, a 
city has to look after those who are too poor to have 
homes. 

In the olden days a king or perhaps a prince or other 
nobleman would own the city and rule it himself, as 
long as he lived. But now the people living in a city 
want to have their say as to how things are to be done. 
So cities are divided into sections, and the people 
in each section choose one or more men who go to the 
city hall and make laws and rules for all the things 
mentioned, and see to it that all the necessary things 
are done. Then the people choose one man who, for 
a few years, shall be at the head of a city and see to it 
that the laws are obeyed. He is called the Mayor. 
It takes a very fine and clever man to be a good mayor. 

Now, see if you can tell what a city would be like 
if there were no mayor and no men selected to go to 
the city hall and look after all the activities of a city. 

The State 

The children should be given a simple idea 
as to the origin of the thirteen original states. 
It should be shown how they developed from 
small beginnings, in contrast to the later states 
whose boundaries were more or less arbitrarily 



96 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

formed merely by dividing sections of territory 
on a map. Unfortunately the writer cannot sug- 
gest the name of a history that could be used 
for this particular work. The great motives 
behind the important movements of great races 
of people and of fractions of a people are rarely 
if ever intelligently or intelligibly touched upon; 
so that the average child — if such a mythological 
person really exists — looks upon the past history 
of this country merely as a succession of raids 
on the parts of Indians, retahatory slaughterings 
on the part of the invaders, revolutions, wars, and 
the like. That the bulk of our first settlers came 
here because of any great and important principle 
is the one thing not made particularly clear. It 
should be emphasized that the strength of the early 
colonies came from people who gave up their homes 
and their fatherland, and went into a wild and 
dangerous country rather than stay at home and 
be denied the right to act upon principles which 
seemed to them the only right ones. The sacri- 
fice made by these people for principle is the lesson 
to be made clear — that is, as clear as may be to 
children of this age. 

If no simple and intelligent school history can 
be found, then there seems to be nothing for it 
but to have the teacher pick out the salient 
points of these early days and have the children 
put them in appropriate note-books, perhaps in 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 97 

their own language. The practice of taking in- 
telligent notes is a valuable one, and one that 
might be begun with advantage even earlier. 
In fact, the note-book should be used for this 
whole early citizenship work, for by the mere 
writing down, a lasting mental impression is 
made, or at least one is made that is more lasting 
than one gained simply by hearing. 

Special attention should be paid to the history 
of the particular state in which the children live. 

The Nation 

The children should be given ideas concerning 
the different types of government, taking as 
examples the absolute monarchy, the Hmited 
monarchy, and the repubhc, concrete examples 
being Russia, England, and the United States. 
They should be encouraged to discuss among 
themselves the respective merits of each form. 
A teacher who has developed open discussion in 
a class — a discussion in which a child will defend 
or attack an idea without thinking that he or 
she is in school, and above all without thinking 
of school reports, has accomphshed an important 
and valuable work. 

All savage tribes have chiefs. These chiefs are usu- 
ally the strongest men and best warriors. Because 
most of the people are afraid of them, they become 



98 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

powerful, ana wnen they get control of all the fighting 
men they become very powerful indeed, and can do 
much as they choose. To become chief of a tribe of 
savages a man has to be their superior. But in some 
more civilized tribes, when a chief dies his son becomes 
chief in his place. When this happens, you may be 
sure that the people think that a chief's family is supe- 
rior to all other families, and that the son of a chief 
must be a superior man and so able to be their chief 
when the time comes. 

Sometimes tribes become larger and larger, so that 
the chiefs gain more and more power. They can con- 
demn a man to death if they like, or start a war, or do 
anything that they desire, for the people think that 
they are superior persons, and quite above them. 
Sometimes the people think their chiefs are almost 
divine, and worship them. Such chiefs become very 
proud, and the people are not much better than slaves, 
for their property and lives are in the hands of the chief. 

In ancient days some tribes grew larger and larger, 
and became civilized in some ways, so that they could 
build great temples and other buildings, and could even 
write after a fashion. With these people the chiefs 
were really what we should call kings or emperors, 
and they could do as they chose. The people worshiped 
them as though they were gods. And sometimes they 
had great empires, as in ancient Babylon and Egypt. 

There are no great empires today where the emperors 
have such great power, but the Czar of Russia controls 
his great empire much as the emperors of Babylon did 
their country, In Russia very many of the people 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 99 

are ignorant. They do not all leam to read and write 
as they do in this country. Most of them think that 
the Czar is almost divine, and come near to worshiping 
him. To a large extent he can do as he likes, and, 
though they have a kind of congress where representa- 
tives of some of the people gather together, he is yet 
much more powerful than that congress, because the 
army is his. When such an emperor, with such power, 
thinks of nothing but the good of his people, then it is 
not so bad, but even then one man is not able to see 
to it that all his people are treated justly. In Russia 
the common people, the ignorant people, probably 
have a hard time of it, and even those who are educated 
have things not a great deal better, because the Czar 
can do with them much as he pleases. 

When people begin to be really civilized, they want 
to have something to say about the running of their 
country. They know of many needs that an emperor 
like the Czar cannot know much about. They want to 
build great factories, perhaps, but are afraid to do so 
if they cannot make laws that will protect them. In 
absolute empires the people are often not allowed to 
worship as they choose; but when they become really 
civilized, they refuse to worship as their emperor 
directs, and each man wishes to worship as he thinks 
right. 

So it is that when a country becomes civilized and 
more or less educated, the people will not permit their 
king or emperor to have such absolute power. If the 
emperor will not listen to them, they will dismiss him 
in some way or other, by force if necessary. They 
7 



100 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

may choose a king who will be more liberal and grant 
them their rights. Then every so many men choose a 
man to represent them in the government. Perhaps 
every ten thousand men choose a man to stand for them, 
and all these representatives gather together at stated 
times and make what laws the people desire and look 
after the country generally. In some liberal countries 
the king has no very great power, but helps to see that 
the laws are obeyed and that relations with foreign 
countries remain friendly as they should be. The 
king often tries to find how the people in different parts 
of the country are doing, so that he can recommend 
to the representatives of the people, measures to help 
them. 

This is much like the government of England, and 
the meeting of the English representatives is called 
Parliament. So you see that in a very liberal kingdom 
like England the people have most of the power and 
the king is really their chief servant. 

Now in some countries, like this country and like 
France, instead of having a king to be the chief servant 
there is a president. The king serves as long as he 
lives, and, when he dies, his son becomes king. But 
in republics like the United States, there is no king; 
but here, every four years, the people choose one man 
whom they call the president, and he must see to it 
that the laws of the country are obeyed, and at certain 
times he tells the meeting of the representatives, which 
is called Congress, the needs of the people. 

In the last kind of government, you see, the people 
have the greatest amount of liberty; for they can choose 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 101 

all their officers, and, if an officer is not able, or is unsat- 
isfactory, they will not choose him again when his 
term is over. See if you can tell all the good points 
of the three kinds of governments, and their bad points 
— the absolute monarchy, the limited monarchy, and 
the republic. 

The children should be given a brief outline 
of the structure of the governing body of the 
United States, with a brief and uncomplicated 
account of its beginnings. 

By this time the children should be able to 
comprehend some of the duties of a government. 
A government should protect the weak against 
the strong, that is, the financially strong as well 
as the merely physically strong. It should see 
to it that its citizens have fair opportunities for 
making a living and progressing. It should see 
to it that opportunities for education are offered 
to all. It should look after the health of the 
nation in every detail. It should help as much 
as necessary in the development of the commerce, 
manufacture, and agriculture, and so on. It 
should be ready to protect the country against 
foreign invasion, and at the same time so develop 
friendly relations with other countries that the 
danger of wars would be minimized. These are 
a few of the points that can be made clear to 
children of this age. The children should be led 
to develop the ideas themselves. 



102 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Ideal Characters 

Although the real hero-worshiping age comes a 
little later, a beginning can be made at this time 
in giving the children ideas concerning some 
ideal characters. The average school Reader for 
children of this age is the acme of futility. 
The writers as well as the selectors of books for 
school reading seem to have an unexampled 
success in gathering from the ends of the earth, 
and ingeniously inventing, all stories that are 
deadly uninteresting for one thing, and without 
point for another. They may have interest and 
even point for children of certain stages of develop- 
ment, but never are the perpetrators guilty of the 
malign mistake of selecting the appropriate type 
for the appropriate stage! For instance, the 
writer knows of a teacher who for three months 
kept a large class of great husky boys of twelve 
and thirteen years occupied with Kingsley's 
Water Babies, which might have had a doubtful 
interest for children four years younger. It bored 
these boys to extinction. The average teacher, 
and the average school board, does not seem to be 
aware that a class of thirteen- and fourteen-year- 
old boys in a good type of public school is quite 
capable of enjoying to a great degree stories even 
as ''mature" as the straight narraiive part of 
Les Miserables, for instance. For the eleven- 
year-old children, then, pick out stories that have 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 103 

some human interest from the child's standpoint, 
and through their reading, or by means of stories 
read or told to them, give them interest in a few 
clear-cut ideal characters. 

Work 

Children of this age will not be able to gain very 
true or definite ideas concerning the value of, and 
necessity for, work. In our daily life far too much 
is made of the rewards of work and not enough of 
the value of the work itself in bringing happiness 
and the mental and physical health which are 
necessary to happiness. We find developing the 
point of view of the average American workman — 
and the blame can be laid to the schools as well 
as to our materialistic spirit — that the thing to 
do is to do as httle work as possible for as much 
as possible, the quality of the work coming as a 
last consideration. Workmen will approve of 
a strike to enforce the re-instatement of a dis- 
charged workman, discharged, perhaps, for inef- 
ficiency, or, as lately in England, for drunkenness. 
They will make this move because he is a member 
of a union, and for no other reason, the quality 
of the man's work not being considered. Such a 
policy is doomed to failure, and many are begin- 
ning to reahze it. The question is, "How well 
can this work be done?" and not ''How little 
can I do and still get the most money?" 



104 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

In the schools the same spirit manifests itself, 
despite all that is being said and done about it. 
The children do good work for ''marks," the qual- 
ity of the work done being a secondary considera- 
tion. The same spirit shows in the usual school 
and college sports, where one must win at all 
costs, not for any pleasure of the sport, but for the 
mere matter of winning. This winning impulse 
is not to be entirely condemned, but it should not 
be made the whole object of the sport; and no 
more should mark- or credit-getting be made the 
main part of school work. This is a matter which 
affects the private schools more than the public, 
for the former are still a generation behind the 
times in such matters. 

In the class work, then, the quality of the work 
should be the main point made much of, and as 
little as possible said about marks. If one must 
mark at all, "satisfactory" and ''unsatisfactory" 
should be enough for all grades below the upper 
high-school ones, where competitive endeavor is 
necessary in order to obtain scholarships and the 
like. 

Children should be made to see that work is 
necessary after leaving school, and that, if we 
must work, then the better we do it the more 
pleasant living will be. We must work in order 
to gain a living. So we must acquire the habit 
of working. A boy cannot "loaf" all through 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 105 

school and then, when put upon his own resources, 
suddenly begin to work effectively. He will 
do when he leaves school just about as he had the 
habit of doing in school. So school is a kind of 
gymnasium in which one prepares for this outer- 
world conflict. It is a place where a boy or a girl 
can gain the habit of working effectively, a habit 
vitally necessary for future success. Children 
commonly argue that studying geography, for 
instance, will not help them in their future work. 
But they should see that while in school they 
cannot work at what they will have to do when 
they leave school, for, first of all, they do not 
know what they will do when they begin work, 
and, second, even if they did, they would be 
incapable of working at such things in school. 
Therefore the schools provide generally useful 
material upon which a child can put his mind and 
use it in learning to work. This idea, of course, 
cannot be given the children all at once, but little 
by little it can be developed, when opportunities 
come, so that eventually they will be led to see 
the real meaning and realize the true value of 
conscientious work. 

Manners 

This reiterates the previous lessons on manners 
and respect. There should be such continued 
insistence upon good manners while in the school 
that they may become habitual. It has been held 



106 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

that children may develop good manners for school, 
and be unmannerly outside and at home. But the 
effect of the school manners does actually ''carry 
over." The teaching of good manners is really 
an important matter. American children are pro- 
verbially bad-mannered, and from much observa- 
tion the writer is inchned to believe that the 
average private-school boy is worse in this respect 
than the public-school boy. The simple reason 
being, perhaps, that the parents of the former are 
too occupied with other unessential matters to 
give proper time to this very essential one. 

Raising the hat may be made a lesson in itself. 

Some hundreds of years ago all men in England who 
were free, and not slaves, carried weapons, not only 
when they went outdoors, but usually even when at 
home. It could not have been very pleasant to live 
in those days, for there were no police" to protect you 
if an armed man wanted to attack you and perhaps 
destroy your home. So all but the slaves carried 
weapons. They had to, to be able to protect themselves 
at all times. 

The nobles and men of means wore armor also. In 
these days armor would do no good, for a bullet would 
go right through it, but then they fought with bows 
and arrows, and with swords and axes, and armor was 
very useful. It must have been very burdensome to 
have to wear armor and carry heavy weapons all the 
time. But it was a very dangerous age, and men had 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 107 

to be prepared all the time, for the next man one met 
might be an enemy. Of course these armed men, 
who were the freemen, did not even notice the slaves, 
and the latter would get no notice from their free 
superiors. But when one free man would meet with 
another, he would hold up his right hand with no weapon 
in it, to show that they met as friends and equals. 
Or if an armed freeman would meet another equal 
who did not happen to be armed, he would hold up 
his empty right hand for the same reason, and he would 
do the same when he met a lady. 

It is a long time since men have had to carry weapons 
at all times; but the custom lasts till today, so that 
when a man meets a friend, he will often raise his right 
hand to his head, as a kind of salute or sign of friend- 
ship; and, if he is really a gentleman, he will not only 
put up his hand, but lift his hat if he meets a lady with 
whom he is acquainted : for the action is a sign of friend- 
ship and of respect. 

So a boy or a man should always lift his cap when he 
meets a lady whom he knows, or when he meets a 
friend walking with a lady whom he does not know, 
or when he rises to give a lady his seat in a car, or the 
like. 

Repeat the reasons why children should have 
respect for their parents and elders generally, and 
for those in authority, and have them illustrate 
how such respect is properly shown, by giving 
typical situations which commonly call for signs 
of respect of different kinds. Table manners 



108 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

may be best considered by having a model table 

and asking the children to illustrate what to do in 

certain cases. 

Time 

This is a continuation of the previous lesson in 
punctuahty. It might be said that when one topic 
has been taken up, say in one grade, it does not 
mean that that subject is not to be touched upon 
again. It is well for a teacher to go back to the 
lessons of previous years, and adapting them to 
the age of her pupils, give them again, so that by 
reiteration the lesson will leave a more permanent 
effect than if touched upon but once. 

With this topic, as with so many others, class 
discussion is very valuable. The children can 
be encouraged to give many reasons against wast- 
ing time, against unpunctuahty, lack of prompt- 
ness, and the like. 

It is a serious criticism against our educational 
methods that the average pupil is not made to 
see that there is a connection between school 
work and the facts and conditions of the out-of- 
school world. The child usually learns arith- 
metic — if it can be called "learning" — generally 
as ''arithmetic" solely, and with but hazy ideas 
as to its utiUty for anything but getting good 
school grades and avoiding school penalties. A 
child learns — ^really learns only when he or she 
is interested, and few children except born mathe- 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 109 

matical geniuses are interested in arithmetic as 
such. So, to be interested in arithmetic, for 
instance, or in any other school subject, a child 
must be shown ways in which that subject is 
very useful. Of course there are uses far be- 
yond the comprehension of children. 

True it is that in some schools of an ante- 
diluvian type — and these are mostly private 
schools — subjects are taught for which children 
of the age taking them can not possibly see any 
outside connection, either in this world or the 
next. Thus it is that we see children of eleven 
and twelve hounded through Latin, bored almost 
to extinction with it, and being told that this 
subject is given them in order to "train their 
minds," give them a better knowledge of their 
own language, and make other languages come 
more easily, not to speak of the great opportunity 
it gives them of reading a very fine hterature in 
the original language of that literature. Of all 
the preposterous impositions foisted upon the 
young private-school child, this one is the worst. 
Every fossilized argument in favor of forcing 
young children to spend hours each week in 
plodding over the dry bones of a defunct language 
is a fair target for anyone who cares to shoot at 
it. In fact the writer cannot resist taking at 
least one good shot at this fetish of certain of 
our schools. 



no CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

What Carlyle, in his inimitable Sartor Resartus, 
has to say on this subject is interesting. Says 
he, speaking for the poor bedeviled Teufelsdrockh, 
''Innumerable dead Vocables they crammed into 
us, and called it fostering the growth of mind.(!) 
How can an inanimate, mechanical Gerund- 
grinder, the Hke of whom will, in a subsequent 
century, be manufactured at Niirnberg out of 
wood and leather, foster the growth of anything; 
much more of Mind, which grows, not like a 
vegetable (by having its roots littered with etymo- 
logical compost), but hke a spirit, by mysterious 
contact of Spirit; Thought kindling itself at the 
fire of living Thought?" 

If studying Latin "develops the mind," so 
does studying German, with the great difference 
that a child can see the value of studying German, 
while he can see no object at all in studying a 
language that has been dead and buried these 
many years! When you tell him that such study 
will aid him greatly in learning his own language 
by giving him a knowledge of the roots of many 
of the words, he will not have a conception of 
what you mean, for he has few conceptions of 
his own language as yet; and as for giving him 
a knowledge of the roots of the words he uses, 
the purpose has httle value, for the language 
of every-day speech is composed of words, a great 
majority of which have Anglo-Saxon roots. 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 111 

As to making other languages come easier — 
perhaps the study of Latin may have this effect, 
though I have my doubts, except in so far as the 
studying of any language accustoms one to the 
language-learning process. It is generally said, 
too, that Latin is particularly useful in learning 
French; but the fact is that French words of 
Latin derivation resemble similar words in Eng- 
lish more than they do their Latin source. As 
to the argument that by learning Latin a very 
beautiful and worthy literature is open to one, 
it is almost absurd; for it is only by years of very 
earnest study and application, added to a special 
abihty in such matters, that one can arrive at an 
understanding of Latin sufficiently complete to 
enable one to read this great literature without 
constant reference to a dictionary. One cannot 
read appreciatively a foreign or ancient tongue 
if one is constantly reminded that it is an ancient 
or foreign tongue. Not one boy in a thousand 
who studies Latin ever arrives at proficiency, so 
that the splendid English translations of the best 
that is in Latin literature are really better ''litera- 
ture" than he can possibly perceive by means 
of his own halting translations. 

Furthermore, we teach children languages by 
the technical method, and not by the natural 
method, and the technical in anything does not 
appeal at all to the young child, however effective 



112 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

it may be with children of sixteen. If Latin 
must be studied, at sixteen a boy can learn more 
Latin in a year than a young boy in two or three. 

Particular emphasis is given to this subject, 
because it is a peculiarly good example of a sub- 
ject given many children for which they can see 
no use and in which, consequently, they can take 
no intelligent interest. But this is not so with 
arithmetic, with history, with geography, with 
English (not mere desolating grammar), with 
manual training, and the Hke. All of these 
things have a value connected with affairs of 
every-day life, affairs of such a simplicity that 
a child can readily see a connection between the 
lesson and the interest to which it applies. 

Bring in as much of the child's initiative as 
possible, however, in making these connections 
clear. Take arithmetic, for instance, and have 
a competition to see which child can tell off-hand 
the greatest number of uses for this subject. 
Then tell children to observe what goes on aroimd 
them, for several days, and see how many new 
uses for arithmetic they then can find. The 
same thing can be done with every other rational 
subject in the curriculum. 

Physical Development 

This is a continuation of the physical-culture 
idea as described in the previous chapter. This, 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 113 

of course, applies particularly to boys, who are 
naturally interested in such things. It is to be 
hoped that the day is not far distant when all 
school children will be examined physically at 
least twice a year, and thoroughly, too. This 
is something that many private schools do, a 
few public high schools, and practically no gram- 
mar or primary schools. Of course we have 
medical examinations, and the like, but these 
are for pupils, generally, who are picked out by 
teachers as probably needing attention. Not only 
should there be thorough physical examination, 
but direct corrective measures, not only medical, 
but gymnastic, for such things as spinal curva- 
ture, which is very common, for under-developed 
chests, round shoulders, and similar defects. 

It is difficult to interest girls in such things, 
but boys can be given a great mterest in their 
physical development. A short talk by some 
well-known athlete has sometunes a marvelous 
effect in stimulating an effective interest. 

This physical interest is made a part of moral 
education because the relation between the physi- 
cal, mental, and moral is very close indeed, and your 
bad boy may merely have adenoids, and your 
stupid, ill-tempered girl may simply be afflicted 
with eye-strain. In either case a removal of the 
physical infirmity may make an entire change 
in character. 



114 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

As was said in the last chapter, by means of 
a sustained interest in their physiques, boys can 
be influenced to abstain from many unhealthful 
things, and to take up customs which make for 
good health and efficiency. The whole matter 
is one of such great importance that it should be 
given special study. This important character- 
istic of boyhood — the interest in physical develop- 
ment — should be utilized to its full value as an 
aid in making boys strong, physically and men- 
tally, as well as morally. 

Housewifery 

Under the general term housewifery come a 
number of subjects closely connected, which 
make a very strong appeal to girls through their 
"mother instinct," so called. As this is a very 
strong characteristic, it may be used as an open- 
ing wedge for bringing in many useful matters, 
just as the physical culture idea brings in many 
useful matters for the boys. It is a lever which 
can be used with great power and effect. 

In some places cooking is now taught, to some 
extent, in the upper grammar grades; but the 
important fact is that the girls who need such 
courses most, in fact the majority of all public- 
school girls, do not reach the highest grammar 
grades at all. Then, too, when these girls are 
given any kind of a course in domestic science, 




The' Prize Baby of a Typical Housekeeping Center 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 115 

it is not given under home conditions, consider- 
ing particularly the kind of homes in which the 
girls live, and will live in when they have homes 
of their own. 

To carry out this housewifery idea, the best 
plan is to have, very near the school, a typical 
dwelling, that is, typical of the kind of dwelling 
from which a majority of the children of each 
particular school come. If a house cannot be 
procured, then the next best thing would be to 
have a room or two in the school building set 
aside for the purpose. In Philadelphia, where 
this plan is being given a very complete trial, 
one "housekeeping center," as it is called, is 
opposite the school it serves. It is a small two- 
story dwelling, such as a majority of the girls 
of that school live in. Another school, situated in 
a district in which the majority of children live 
in two-room ''apartments," two rooms are util- 
ized, in a building opposite the school. This 
little house, as well as the two rooms, is furnished 
as the people of the neighborhood could furnish 
their homes, with their means. Considerable 
attention is paid to arranging furniture and to 
showing by example that a few good things are 
much better than a multitude of cheap and tawdry 
ornaments, such as are generally used to cover 
the walls and mantels. 

Bad taste is not by any means confined to the 



116 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

homes of immigrants. The well-to-do, or a 
great majority of them, do not seem to think 
a room furnished unless every bit of wall- 
space is covered by some kind of picture, and 
every nook and corner made conspicuous by some 
criminally ugly piece of bric-a-brac. So no matter 
what class of people is represented in a particular 
school, the housekeeping center can be utihzed 
in developing ideas of good taste in house fur- 
nishing and decoration. This particular kind of 
work may be aided in class by having the girls 
plan a room, or a side of a room, on a large sheet 
of pasteboard, carrying out some color scheme in 
wall paper and furniture, the latter being cut out 
and pasted into the plan. Such a means may 
be used to show the superiority, in many cases, 
of the plain-tinted wall over the wall covered 
with the almost terrifying designs and figures 
that are so painfully common these days. 

In the housekeeping center particular emphasis 
can be given to the cooking lessons received in 
the school — lessons which should be given to 
girls in the third grade, or at least in the fourth. 
In this house they can plan efficient menus, with 
their future means in view; they can be taught, 
by actual practice, as is done in Philadelphia, 
to market for those meals, and, finally, they can 
prepare the meals themselves. 

It should be the work of the girls to keep the 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 117 

house in order, to learn simple methods of house- 
keeping and sanitation, and the like. 

For the older girls a very important work can 
be done — a work that has been found very popular 
and valuable in the Philadelphia experiment. 
At certain periods there are held ''baby classes." 
At these times an expert is in charge, and the 
mothers of the neighborhood are invited to bring 
their infants to the class for expert advice or 
demonstration. The older girls attend these 
classes and, by example and by actually helping, 
learn much that is necessary and practical con- 
cerning the feeding, bathing, dressing, and general 
care of infants. This is particularly necessary 
and helpful for those older girls who are soon to 
leave school to enter the factory. Of course 
this particular work is not for the ten- and eleven- 
year-old girls, but for those thirteen and fourteen. 
But, because this ''housework" begins with the 
younger ones, a complete description of this 
idea is given here. The taking up of such matters 
creates a splendid opportunity for the giving of 
a number of talks concerning not only the home, 
and all that it implies, but personal hygiene as 
well. Furthermore, these talks should be given 
in the "homes" themselves; for the atmosphere 
here is far different from that of the class room, 
and what in the latter might seem unusual, would 
seem perfectly natural in the homelike surround- 
ings of the housekeeping center. 



118 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

The following are a few of the topics taken up 
by the older girls — girls of thirteen and fourteen — 
in the housekeeping centers organized in Phila- 
delphia: General care of infants; why prepared 
foods are not best; special feeding; clothing in 
summer and winter; sleep; ventilation; emer- 
gencies; how to tell common contagious diseases; 
care of eyes, teeth and hair; importance of the 
mother's health; home-made refrigerators and 
methods of keeping milk clean; personal hygiene; 
menus for invahds, selection and preparation; 
and so on. Everything possible is done, too, to 
give the girls an idea of the meaning of the sanctity 
of the home and of motherhood. 

Frugality and Wastefulness 

Children of this age are quite capable of under- 
standing the difference between these two qualities. 
Yet children are very wasteful and do not look 
ahead far enough, unless trained to do so, to 
realize that waste often produces want, and that 
frugality often makes possible things generally 
difficult of attainment. A little story or two 
always helps to make an idea clear. 

There were once two working-men of about the same 
age. They were neighbors and lived in neat little 
houses, the house of one being very much like that of 
the other. They were good workmen, too, and so 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 119 

received good pay, just about the same amount for 
each. Each one, too, had his Httle family of three 
children whom they loved very much. So you see that 
in many ways these two men v/ere much alike, yet in 
another way they were very different. One was careful 
of his money and of his property, while the other was 
careless with both of these things. 

The careful man, for instance, always saw to it that 

his clothes were in good order, and his wife saw to it 

that the clothes of his children were kept in good repair, 

<-and the result of this was that all their clothes lasted 

a long while and looked very well. 

The other man and his family were quite different. 
When his clothes were injured, this man, instead of 
having them neatly repaired, threw them away. The 
children were careless, too, and did not look after their 
things, which soon became shabby and soon were thrown 
away. This means that the second man, the careless 
one, spent half as much again on clothes for himself 
and his family as did the first man. 

The first man was strong and athletic and was proud 
of his strength, and would not do anything that might 
make him any weaker. So he never smoked and never 
used any alcoholic drink. The other man did not 
smoke a great deal, possibly two boxes of cigarettes 
in a week; and drank only three or four glasses of beer. 
But just this little waste meant over $18 in a 
year, and a great many things can be done with $18. 

At the end of a few years, what was the result of the 
different ways the two families lived? (Have the 
children discuss the possible results, which, of course, 



120 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

are very obvious.) Well, the first man, who, with his 
family, was careful of all his things and who did not 
waste any money on useless or harmful pleasures, had 
a little money over after all his expenses were paid. 
This money was put in a savings bank, and perhaps 
you know that each dollar put in a savings bank earns 
four cents each year it is there. Of course, as his wages 
were not very large, the amount in the bank at the end 
of the first year was not very much, but it was something, 
and a great deal more than the second man had, who 
had nothing put by at all. You see he spent every 
cent of his wages as they came in. Well, at the end of 
these five years the first man had over a thousand 
dollars in bank. You see he saved three dollars each 
week for his first year, and a little more the other four 
years, because, being an intelligent workman, improving 
his work all the time, his wages were increased little 
by little. And then, too, every dollar put in bank had 
earned its four cents of interest at the end of each year, 
and when you have many dollars doing that you see 
it makes a good sum. But all this time the other man 
had saved nothing, and being, as you have seen, rather 
careless, did not improve his work, and so got little 
increase in his wages. 

Then a very sad thing happened. The measles came 
into the neighborhood, and each one of these men had 
a child taken with this disease, and they both had it 
pretty badly, too, and before they were well again 
they had received a good many visits from the doctor, 
and many other expensive things had been necessary. 

Now the man who had over a thousand dollars in 



TEN AND ELEVEN YEARS 121 

bank paid all his bills at once, and did not feel the loss 
of money at all. But the other man, who, you know, 
had nothing put by, had to sell some of his things and 
had to borrow some money, in order to pay his bills. 
And that made it very hard for him and his family, for 
they had to do without many things they were accus- 
tomed to, in order that the money borrowed would 
be paid back in time, and new things bought to re- 
place those that had had to be sold. 

Finally the careful man had enough put by to pur- 
chase a little home of his own, and then he saved more 
than ever, because a large part of what he used to pay 
for rent now could go into the bank. Being this kind 
of man, he naturally progressed in his work, and one 
day became foreman, and, later, supervisor, so that 
by the time he was middle-aged he was doing very 
well, his family was always well clothed, his children 
were being well educated, and they were all very happy. 

But the other poor fellow did not learn anything 
by his hard lesson, for he was just as careless as ever, 
and so were his children. These children, because they 
were generally careless, were ill rather often, and indeed 
the whole family was quite wretched, and hardly knew 
what real happiness meant. 

So it is very easy to see the difference between the 
lives of people who are careful of their things and those 
who are careless and wasteful 

The teacher may follow this idea with a dis- 
cussion in which the children are encouraged to 
tell in v/hat ways they themselves can be careful 
or wasteful. 



122 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

School Banks 

About this time the saving habit may well be 
encouraged in the school. In some places school 
banks have been established, with fine results. 
Sometimes the children take part in the manage- 
ment of the banks. In two of the schools in 
Philadelphia in which the moral education experi- 
ment is being tried out, the principals conduct 
school savings banks, in which the boys can save 
their money, a definite purpose being given for 
saving by making it possible for the boys, for 
a very small sum per week, to attend a camp 
managed by the Christian Association of the 
University of Pennsylvania in the summer. 



CHAPTER V 

Children of Twelve Years 

The psychological difference between boys and 
girls shows more plainly as children approach the 
age of twelve years. A system of teaching adapted 
for boys will not do particularly well with girls, 
and vice versa. It is also probably true that a 
system of teaching appHcable for mixed classes 
will not be as efficient as systems made for boys 
and girls when taught separately. But as in the 
average school the sexes are taught together up 
to the high school, and as in many cities they are 
taught together even in high school, it seems best, 
in this series of lessons, to adapt the work as far 
as possible for classes containing both boys and 
girls, departing from this only in special instances, 
as in the physical work with the boys described 
in the last chapter, and the housekeeping work 
with the girls. 

Citizenship 

A large part of this work should not be confined 
to children of twelve years. As developed experi- 
mentally, it was found well to give the work, or 
most of it, to the assembled classes of grammar- 

(123) 



124 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

grade children of twelve years and older, begin- 
ning, roughly, with what is generally termed the 
''6th B." Abstract talks on civics would be 
useless. A child must begin with the concrete, 
and from this work up to the abstract. 

On a certain day, without warning, provide 
the children with paper, pencils, and rulers. 
Tell them that you are going to ask them to do 
something about which they know little or noth- 
ing. When they are ready ask them to plan an 
''ideal city," remembering that cities must have 
streets, pubHc buildings, and the hke. Do not 
enumerate the necessary items that must be con- 
sidered in planning a city — let the children do 
their own thinking. Allow them, say, ten or 
fifteen minutes. 

Of course they will make a great mess of the 
work. They know nothing of city planning. 
Some of the older boys may have some faint 
ideas; but, generally speaking, all they will pro- 
duce will be meaningless scrawls, more or less 
imitating the plan of their own home city. 

Then, if possible, have some city official con- 
nected with the "city beautiful" or city planning 
work, come to the school and describe what must 
be considered in planning an ideal city. If it is 
impossible to get an expert from outside, then one 
member of the school staff might look up the 
subject beforehand, and talk about radiating 



TWELVE YEARS 125 

streets, city parks, schools and school play- 
grounds, working-men's suburbs, transit facilities, 
and the like, perhaps showing the plan of some 
-planned city hke Washington. Most of our 
cities simply grew, Hke Topsy. Washington, 
however, was planned from the beginning. 
Chicago imitated the Philadelphia idea. Phila- 
delphia was planned from the beginning, too, 
and this plan in which all the streets run at 
right angles to each other, is a good one for a 
small city. It has its bad points for a large city, 
and milhons must be spent in cutting radiating 
streets through built-up sections. Such points 
as these can be brought out, also mentioning the 
point that if it were too easy to go from any 
outer part of the city to the central districts, the 
small store would almost go out of existence, 
because it would be so simple a matter to go to 
the larger stores of the main part of the town. 

When the children have received a large number 
of ideas concerning the ideal city, physically 
considered, then competitions may be arranged 
to find which boy or girl can plan the best city, 
the best from each class being exhibited. This 
creates an immense interest in the "city" idea. 

With this interest as a foundation, the children 
should study how their own city is governed, 
department by department. In Philadelphia, 
where this plan is being given a trial, officials from 



126 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

different city departments have visited the schools 
and described the work of their departments. 
In this manner the childi-en are given a very 
good idea as to what it means to be a citizen, 
and they obtain a very practical knowledge of the 
government of their city. 

Although the best work will be done by the 
older boys and girls, the twelve-year-old children 
will learn enough to make it worth while beginning 
with them. 

It is a good plan to have the children keep 
''citizenship" note-books, in which they can 
write anything interesting which they may learn 
concerning cities in general, and their own city 
in particular, or in which they may paste clippings 
taken from papers or magazines concerning the 
same subject. 

A very important city department which should 
be represented by a uniformed officer at least, is 
that of Public Safety. The average boy looks 
upon the pohceman as a hereditary enemy, and 
it makes a decided impression for the good to 
have an intelligent representative of this important 
department come to a school and tell the boys 
how they can co-operate with the police — how 
they can work together for the good of the city. 
When this was done in one of the schools in a very 
poor and lively district in Philadelphia, there was 
a marked change in the attitude of the boys of 



TWELVE YEARS 127 

that neighborhood toward the police, and the 
police reported a great improvement in the order 
of the juvenile part of the population there. 

Having public of&cials speak to the children 
has a great effect. Their coming should be made 
a very important affair. It has been found effec- 
tive to have the Boy Scouts of a school on hand in 
uniform to receive such officials, and to act as a 
"guard of honor." Such things impress children 
very strongly, and it is well to have them so 
impressed. 

General discussions of subjects connected with 
citizenship may be encouraged to advantage — 
that is, class discussions. For instance, the chil- 
dren might argue as to whether it makes any differ- 
ence if a director of public works is connected with 
some building-contracting company, or whether 
it makes any difference if a director of public 
safety holds stock in some liquor manufactory. 
They might discuss the ethical side of a trans- 
action in which a councilman received a commis- 
sion for having a public building built by any 
certain concern. They might work out the reason 
why it is not right to pay for votes. In these 
discussions it is far better for the teacher merely 
to lead the general trend of the argument rather 
than to give decided opinions on the subject. 
As has been said several times before, an idea 
which a child has worked out for himself or her- 



128 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

self, has a far stronger place in his or her conscious- 
ness than any statement made by a teacher or 
any one else. 

Some of these ideas, of course, could not be 
worked out in one discussion. The children 
might be encouraged to take their problems home 
with them, and obtain all the advice and knowl- 
edge possible on the matter, and to bring the 
results with them to the next discussion, the 
final result of each such argument being put 
into the "citizenship book" mentioned. 

Have the children work out the idea of taxation, 
making them see how the people of a city pay 
for all the work of the city, and pay all the public 
officials, from the mayor to the street cleaners. 
Have the children discuss the question of how 
streets are to be kept clean, and whether they 
should do anything about it. Make them see 
that the dirtier the streets are made, the more 
men it will take to clean them, and the more of 
the tax-payers' money must go for the purpose, 
when there may be other great needs. Lead the 
children to see that it is good citizenship to help 
keep the streets clean, and very bad citizenship 
to throw waste of any kind into the street. 

Have the children find out how their city 
officials are elected — mayor, councilmen, or alder- 
men, and all. Ask them to explain who it is that 
makes the laws of the city, and show them, or. 



TWELVE YEARS 129 

better, have them show themselves, that the 
laws are made by the citizens through their repre- 
sentatives, and that as the people make the laws, 
they should respect them, and children should 
respect them for the same reason. 

The school-city idea is a good one if not carried 
to excess and if the children really do the work 
and not the teachers. It gives the children a 
very concrete idea as to the meaning of repre- 
sentative government and as to the actual struc- 
ture of the government of their own city. 

Occupational Morality 

The following idea may be given a class in 
story form, as is given here, or some other way, 
and a discussion arranged as indicated. Such a 
discussion followed by a composition on the 
subject would make a strong impression. 

There was once a man who had considerable ability, 
but who was too lazy to do much with it. So he worked 
at a job which required a great deal of physical exertion 
and little mental exertion. It is harder, much harder, 
to work with one's brain than with one's body, and that 
is one reason why there are so many laborers and so 
few who become really successful. Well, this man was 
not satisfied with the amount of money he was earning, 
even though it was all he deserved for his work. He 
knew very well that he would have to do differently 
if he wished to earn more money; but as I said, he did 
not care to think more than he had to, so he resolved, 



130 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

instead of earning a better living by his own endeavor, 
to take by force the earnings of other people. 

This man kept at his usual daily work, but, now and 
then, at night, he would break into some little store 
and steal what money and valuables he could get. 
Sometimes this would mean ruin for the people who 
cv^Tied the store, who had put their savings into the 
stock, and who could ill afford losing what little money 
they kept in the safe there. 

Sometimes, too, he would break into houses and steal 
what money and jewelry he could find. 

He used to excuse himself with this argument: 
"These people," he would say to himself, "have more 
than they need, and I haven't enough, so they have more 
than they should have, and therefore it is right for me 
to take what I can get from them." Yet all the time 
he knew his argument was silly, and that if every one 
thought as he did and acted as he did, we should all 
become barbarians and no man's life would be safe, 
nor his house, nor his furniture, nor his family, nor his 
wages or earnings, nor even the food he would purchase 
for his wife and children. 

The whole trouble was that he was too lazy to do 
mental work, and too dishonest to depend on his own 
work, and so tried to live on the work of others. What 
do you think of this man? 

There was another man who owned a large factory 
where different kinds of articles were made. This man 
was making a good income, but he was not satisfied 
with it. He could not afford to own an expensive 
automobile, or live in a very large and expensive house, 



TWELVE YEARS 131 

as some of his neighbors did; he could not travel 
around the world as splendidly as some; and, in short, 
he was dissatisfied with things in general. He therefore 
decided to sell goods to people for a price beyond what 
the goods were worth to them. So he advertised 
largely all over the country that he would sell certain 
kinds of goods for a certain price, and he made it seem 
like a very good bargain, so that very many people, 
most of whom did not have much money to spare, 
sent him money. In return he shipped goods to them; 
but when the goods arrived the people found that they 
had been cheated, and that the articles were not worth 
nearly the amount that had been asked for them. 

People who are cheated this way do not often try 
to do anything about it; for legal fights are very long 
and expensive. Those who wrote protests were ignored, 
and the man, who was making large sums of money, 
advertised even abroad, and shipped large quantities 
of cheap goods for too high a price, and so increased 
his income a great deal. What was this man really 
doing? Why, of course, he was not satisfied with what 
he could earn, and so decided to steal the earnings of 
other people. What do you think of this man? 

There was another man who was a doctor. He was 
not satisfied with the small amount of money made 
by most honest doctors. It meant too much mental 
effort and study to rise high in his profession, and yefc 
he wanted more money. So he decided to take advan- 
tage of the fears of sick people, and of the distress of 
those in pain, and sell them some cheap stuff for a large 
price, telling them that this stuff was a medicine that 

was sure to cure them of their diseases. 
9 



132 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

He advertised in second-rate magazines and papers. 
No first-rate magazine or paper will print such adver- 
tisements. But many second-rate ones did, and in 
these advertisements he said that a few bottles of his 
medicine, at a dollar a bottle, would cure in a short 
time some of the very common diseases that people 
have. 

Of course educated people know that no really good 
doctor will advertise. He does not have to. But only 
those who do not know this answer such advertise- 
ments. Generally, they are poor people who have 
not much money to spare. 

Hundreds of poor folk sent their dollars to the man, 
and he sent them bottles of medicine that really was 
not medicine. Worse than that, he had a little of a 
very dangerous drug mixed up with the stuff in each 
bottle, and this drug has a very bad effect. It makes 
the people who take it feel better for a little while, 
though they are not really better at all, and, worse 
yet, it gives the people who take it a craving for more 
of it. So just see what this man did! He sold a medi- 
cine that would not cure, to people Avho were very 
ill, and not only that, but he poisoned them so that 
they would want more and more of his medicine. 
Many of them died, of course, some on account of the 
drug, and some because they were not getting a treat- 
ment that would help them. Yet this man made 
much more money than before. 

What was this man doing? Why, he was too lazy to 
do the mental work necessary to success, and too dis- 
honest to depend upon his own earnings, and so he 



TWELVE YEARS 133 

lived upon the earnings and upon the fears and sick- 
nesses and pains of others. What do you think of 
this man? 

Then there was another man who was much like these 
others. This one was a contractor who made bridges. 
A certain city was going to build a bridge over a river. 
The city government chose a committee of men to have 
the bridge designed and built. When the design was 
made many bridge-makers obtained copies, and, 
after they had studied them, they decided how much 
they could make the bridge for and to this they added 
the amount of profit they thought they should make, 
and each one handed his price in a sealed envelope to 
the committee of men. This committee was to open 
the envelopes, read the prices the contractors made, 
and give the work to the contractor who offered to 
do the work for the least sum. Now the man we are 
talking about wanted that work very badly, but he 
did not know whether his price was the lowest or not, 
so he promised a certain sum of money to one of the 
men on that commission if this man would let him know 
what the other contractors bid, and then he would fix 
his price so that it would be the lowest. This was done. 
As each envelope came in this dishonest committee-man 
looked in them, and finally he let our man know all the 
prices of the other men. Then our man made his price 
just a little less than the lowest of the others, put his 
bid in an envelope, and handed it in. Of course the 
committee found his bid the lowest and gave him the 
work, and the committee-man was given the sum of 
money promised him. 



134 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Now what had this contractor done? He had by- 
dishonest methods taken a piece of work which of 
right belonged to another man, and not only that, but 
he had helped to make a public servant, the dishonest 
committee-man, deceive the people who put him in 
office. 

But this was not all he did. Charging such a cheap 
price, he could not make a great deal of money if he 
did the work strictly according to the plan, and put in 
the high grade of stone work and the first-class steel 
work required. The city paid inspectors to watch the 
work and to see that all the material was according to 
contract, and that the work was done in jfirst-class 
fashion. But our contractor made friends with these 
inspectors and paid them sums of money, so that they 
did not look when cheap material was used and when 
the work was being done carelessly. The result of this 
was that the contractor finally gave the city a much 
cheaper bridge than the city paid for. This means 
that the contractor, not being satisfied to make a good 
income from first-class work, preferred what he thought 
an easier way, and so robbed the people of the city, 
whose taxes paid for the bridge. He robbed them be- 
cause he sold them a much cheaper and poorer bridge 
than they thought they were getting. 

What do you think of this man? What do you think 
of that dishonest public servant — the committee-man? 
And what do you think of the other dishonest public 
servants — the inspectors? 

Have the children discuss each case, and 
endeavor to decide which was the worst. Lead 



TWELVE YEARS 135 

them to see that the quack doctor was about the 
worst of all along with the false public servants — 
for a doctor is a semi-pubhc servant. Lead them 
to see that the man who was a simple thief, who 
made no bones about it, was no worse, and prob- 
ably not as bad, as the men who were just as 
bad thieves, and worse, though they paraded 
under the guise of honest men. 

There is food here for several discussions and 
compositions, which might go into the ''citizen- 
ship" book, along with newspaper clippings 
describing similar cases. 

Work 

The idea brought out here may be just a little 
difficult for many boys of twelve, but they can 
grasp a part of the idea. Bringing up the subject 
again later will help to make the meaning more 
clear and the effect more permanent. 

Ask the children to tell what the difference is 
between work and 'play. Remember, it is far 
better to have the children develop these ideas 
themselves. They are quite capable of doing so. 
At first their ideas on this important subject will 
be rather vague, but by careful leading they 
will bring out the idea that a thing is work or 
play according to the way one looks at it. 

Give the example of the artist who works day 
after day and perhaps year after year on a master- 



136 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

piece, the question of whether or not he will 
receive financial remuneration for it not entering 
his mind. He takes the utmost pleasure in what 
he is doing, so that, though his work is work it is 
never labor. On the other hand, consider a 
laborer who digs in a ditch. Very probably he 
does as little digging as he can for as much as he 
can get. He dislikes the occupation, and does it 
because he has to. So he gets no pleasure out of 
it and it is labor rather than work. Develop the 
idea that real work should be enjoyed by the 
workman, and if it is not enjoyed it is not work 
but labor. Show that, after all, work and play 
are very similar, enjoyment being a necessary 
part. Therefore if one enjoys liis work it is as 
play to him and therefore pleasant. 

Bring out the idea that work is necessary for us 
all. A rich man who does not work does not 
develop a strong character. He is likely to be weak- 
willed. A will becomes strong as a muscle does. 
You strengthen a muscle by using it against some 
resistance. So the will becomes strong by work- 
ing it against something that perhaps it would 
rather not do. The fellow riding about in a six- 
thousand-dollar automobile may be the ''biggest 
dub in town," as the boys say. A person who 
cannot do anything worth while is rarely happy. 

To be happy we must have occupation to exer- 
cise our minds upon. So we must all work, and 



TWELVE YEARS 137 

if we are to have happy lives and not be mere 
laborers, we must enjoy our work. We must 
try, therefore, to look upon all our work as some- 
thing pleasant. Perhaps this may be hard with 
a thing like arithmetic, but it can be done. Ask 
the children to propose ways of looldng at dif- 
ferent studies, or worldng with them, that will 
make them really enjoyable. As to the arith- 
metic, it may be made enjoyable by making very 
practical applications of it in a competitive way, 
and by eliminating processes for which a child 
can see no use, and which, for most of us, have no 
use in practice. Such things, for children, are 
cube root and compound interest. 

This is a very important lesson, and should be 
brought up several times. 

History 

A child of twelve begins to have an interest in 
history. It is a fatal mistake, however, to give 
children of this age the dry, technical history which 
is so common in our schools, pubHc and private. 
But they can be interested in the doings of his- 
torical persons, and, where the story is not too 
complicated, in the movements of historical 
peoples. But particularly are they interested in 
primitive peoples. It seems second nature for 
the American boy of this age to play '^Indian." 
I dare say the German or Russian boys of the same 



138 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

stage of development do not play ''Indian," but 
they certainly do play something of the same spirit. 
Children themselves are primitive, so it is natm-al 
that they should be interested in primitive peoples, 
far more than in histories of the American Col- 
onies, the later English kings, and the Hke. 

Since an interest in the primitive seems to be a 
natural characteristic, then, and since this whole 
schedule for work in moral education is supposed 
to be built upon the natural characteristics of 
children, we should get what lessons we can from 
the histories, manners, customs, and even ethics, 
of primitive peoples. 

For us, as Americans, the American Indian 
furnishes a popular, convenient, and good example. 
Children of twelve are capable of finding out for 
themselves many things concerning the American 
Indians. 

Announce to the class that a week, say, from 
date, you will ask them how the Indian tribes of 
North America governed themselves. You can 
suggest the use of encyclopedias, and perhaps have 
a few appropriate books on hand for their use. 
When the day arrives the children will discuss the 
method of government of the main Indian tribes, 
gaining an idea of the tribal system, finding how 
the chiefs were chosen, the peace chiefs and war 
chiefs, and what powers they had. 

On another occasion tell them that you are going 



TWELVE YEARS 139 

to ask them in a few days how the ancient Mexican 
Aztecs governed themselves. They can compare 
the more centrahzed government of the Aztecs 
with the scattered tribal formations of the Ameri- 
can Indians. 

Let them take up the government of the Incas 
in the same way. Here they will find an absolute 
government of a very fine type. A few facts 
concerning it may be a propos at this point. 

The Incas were a governing family or race which 
kept itself separate from the lowe^ peoples they 
conquered. The government was a beneficent 
one, if absolute. It was developed to a very high 
standard of efficiency, for the Incas were undoubt- 
edly the highest developed of all the American 
races, and were much superior to the Aztecs of 
Mexico. 

The ''Inca," as their emperor was called, 
owned everything. No individual really possessed 
anything. The government saw to it that all 
had what they needed. If a man were a farmer, 
the government took the surplus of his harvest, 
and in return gave him what clothing material 
he and his family needed, repaired his dwelling, 
if it needed repair, and saw that other necessi- 
ties were supphed. A silversmith, for instance, 
worked with his silver, and the government sup- 
phed him with provisions and everything else 
needed. Each one had enough and no more. 



140 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Everyone worked or suffered a severe penalty 
for not working. 

Of every ten men one was the head; of every 
ten of these heads there was one the head — really 
a '' centurion," and of every ten of these there 
was one head, and so on up to heads of ten 
thousands, and the government was carried on by 
these heads and through them. 

The Incas, far superior to the Aztecs, had high 
religious views. The Aztecs had their altars 
running with the blood of human sacrifices, but 
the Incas put flowers only on their altars, and 
seemed to look upon the Deity much as did the 
ancient Jews. When the Incas conquered a 
barbarous tribe, they usually made the chief of 
that tribe the representative of the government 
for that tribe. They aboHshed the cruel religious 
ceremonies common to savages, and gave their 
new subjects a higher ideal. 

The government, owning all the harvests, 
always put aside a proportion, which was stored 
in numbers of granaries, distributed along the 
magnificent roads which traversed the empire. 
The grain was kept to make up for any unexpected 
losses on account of famine or war, and to supply 
those whose occupation was not agriculture. 

Here we see a very absolute kind of government, 
in which the emperor owns everything, where 
evervone has enough for his needs, and no more. 



TWELVE YEARS 141 

where loafing is not tolerated, and where the em- 
peror's only thought is the good of his people. 

Have the children discuss the following points, 
considering what they have learned concerning 
the tribal organization of the North American 
Indians, the empire of the Aztecs, and that of the 
Incas: 

How was the government of the Aztecs better 
than that of the North American Indians? Idea 
to be brought out: A more compact organiza- 
tion made for more individual protection. A 
bad point was that a vast majority were slaves 
of family or tribal chiefs, from whom neither they 
nor their goods had any protection. Life was 
cheap to the Aztec leaders, who treated their 
subjects like cattle. 

How was the government of the Incas better 
than that of the Aztecs? Idea to be brought out : 
The object of the government was to see that all 
the people had enough, that every one worked, 
and that loafers and immorality of any kind were 
promptly punished. A bad point was that there 
could be little initiative among the lower orders, 
and little freedom of action. The individual was 
insignificant and the system supreme. Another 
bad point in a government so absolute is that, 
should it fall into the hands of irresponsible or 
unworthy rulers, the condition of the people would 
become desperate. A beneficent despotism has 



142 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

many good points and as many bad ones. Can 
a system of government in a republic act as a 
beneficent despotism? 

With the Incas the numerous orders of officers 
were appointed. What would happen in such 
a government if an officer were unworthy? The 
people under that man would have to prove 
his unfitness to the superiors who appointed him. 
This might be difficult to do, and, if they failed, 
it would subject them to his revenge. It would 
be far better, of course, if an unworthy officer 
could be withdrawn by a majority vote of the 
people over whom he had charge. 

When is an officer more likely to be just in his 
dealings with the people under him — if he is 
appointed to be their officer by some superior, 
or if he is elected and kept in office by his people? 

What present government corresponds to that 
of the Incas? Have some one or two delegated to 
look up some simple account of the government 
of Russia and report upon it. 

In what way is the German government higher 
or better than the Russian? 

In which governments have the people the most 
choice a^ to their officers, and what is the result 
of such governments? Have the children bring 
out the point that such governments do well or 
ill according to the amount of care and interest the 
citizens take in the voting. Therefore, in a repub- 



TWELVE YEARS 143 

lie the government is good or bad according to 
the expressed desires of the people. What about 
people who do not vote when they can? Make 
the children see that voting is a very great privi- 
lege, not to be looked upon lightly, nor neglected. 

Of course some of the foregoing questions may 
be a little difficult for boys of twelve, but remember 
that many of these boys in a couple of years are 
going to leave school for work. Therefore all 
endeavor should be made in the time that remains 
to give them such basic ideas as have been indi- 
cated. Above all, do not give them long disser- 
tations on these subjects, but have them develop 
the ideas as much as possible. Have them look 
up as many of the subjects as need be, and let 
them write summaries in their "citizenship" 
books. 

It need hardly be said that all this governmental 
work should not be attempted in one lesson, but 
it should be scattered over a number of lessons, 
and perhaps repeated, in some form, the following 
year. 

With a knowledge of fundamentals as has been 
suggested, the children will have a more intelli- 
gent understanding of the historical development 
of our government. There should be something 
in our histories besides battles and adventures, 
attractive though they are. Also, to understand 
our beginnings, a simple plan of the English gov- 



144 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

ernment should be understood. Following this 
may come a brief and uncomplex study of two or 
three typical colonial governments — governments 
in which the colonists had a good deal to say con- 
cerning their immediate affairs, but nothing, or 
almost nothing, concerning the government of 
the colonies as a whole. Furthermore, some 
governors were appointed by the Crown — and 
acted accordingly. Develop simply the growth 
of our government from the first assembly of colo- 
nial representatives. 

Clean Character 

Tell the children a story similar to the following, 
and have them draw their own conclusions from 
it. It might be well to read or tell the story, and 
then have the children write brief compositions 
as to the meaning. The best and most appro- 
priate compositions might be discussed before 
and by the class. 

A boy once owned a fine clock which had the most 
delicate and wonderful works you ever heard of. 
When in good order the clock did remarkably well, 
and when the boy was given the clock it was new and 
in perfect order, and kept perfect time. 

Now it was very necessary for the boy to take good 
care of this delicate instrimient. He had to see to 
it that it was kept wound up and that no dust and 
dirt got into the fine wheels and pinions of the works. 



TWELVE YEARS 145 

The working of the mechanical part of the clock 
was very unusual; Did you ever look in a jeweler's 
window and see a peculiar kind of glass bulb there, 
with four little square black vanes inside, slowly going 
around? This queer little vane inside the bulb goes 
only when the light is on it, and very fast when sun 
shines on it, but when it is placed in the dark it does 
not go at all. Well, the works of this wonderful clock 
reminded one of the jeweler's odd machine, for light 
had to shine on the works for some hours each day, 
and there were two openings in the casing for that 
purpose. And the boy had to see to it that nothing 
harmful entered those openings with the light. 

Of course you all know what a telephone is like — 
there has to be a sound made in one part if anyone 
is going to hear anything from a telephone. You 
see it works by having sound come into it. Well, 
the works of this clock were something like that, and 
a couple of openings were fixed in the casing so that 
sounds could come in to a part of the works which 
would not work at all if sound did not come in. And 
the boy had to watch these openings too, to see that 
nothing harmful to the works got in. 

For a long time the boy took excellent care of his 
clock, so that every one who saw it trusted it and 
beUeved in its accuracy, and came to have a very 
high opinion of it. But after awhile some observant 
people discovered that there was something wrong 
with it. Sometimes it would run a little too fast, 
and sometimes a little too slow, and sometimes it ran 
very irregularly, and, to tell the truth, sometimes it 



146 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

hardly went at all. So you see that people who still 
trusted it were deceived several times, and then, of 
course, they would have nothing to do with it. Finally, 
the boy, to his disgust, saw that no one seemed to 
think much of him or of his clock. So he took some 
poUsh and a cloth and shone the casing of that clock 
with all his might, till it glittered like new, and looked 
so fine that some persons thought it must be right — 
it looked so fine; but, unfortunately, all the polishing 
would do it no good, for it ran as irregularly as ever, 
and though the boy polished the casing now and then, 
the clock ran as badly as ever. 

So you can understand how it was that all finally 
lost faith in that boy's clock and would never trust it. 
What was the matter, do you suppose? The boy 
certainly polished the casing frequently, but it ran as 
badly as ever. Well, the trouble was that some dust 
and dirt had gotten into the works, so that it was no 
wonder that the delicate machinery would not go in 
an orderly fashion. After a long while the boy 
realized it too. He had suspected the trouble for a 
long time, but he was so careless and lazy that he did 
not want to go to the trouble of doing the right thing. 
And there are some boys who would have let it go 
badly to the end of their days. But this boy became, 
one day, so ashamed and disgusted, that he got right 
down to it and cleaned out those works, after which 
the clock went as well as ever, but it was a long time 
before people would trust it again, you may be sure. 
And you may be sure, too, that the boy took mighty 
good care to see that no more dirt got in through the 
four openings I told you about. 



TWELVE YEARS 147 

Of course the children will see that the clock 
represents the boy's mind, and that the boy in 
question allowed wrong ideas to enter his mind 
through his eyes and ears. 

Ideal Characters 

Two or three ideal characters should be studied 
during this year. Washington and Lincoln fur- 
nish appropriate examples. Their lives, in some 
simple form, may be read and studied in class. 
Particularly let me emphasize the value of dis- 
cussions concerning the motives that led these 
two great men in their most noteworthy actions. 
It may be well to place a small Hbrary of books 
on the subject at the disposal of the class, and give 
the children a sufficient time to make digests of 
what information they can find concerning cer- 
tain assigned particulars, and then, finally, have 
the children report on their work. This method 
makes a far stronger impression than would a 
considerable amount of mere reading to them or 
talking to them. You see it is a constant pohcy, 
in as many of these lessons as possible, to encourage 
the children to express themselves, and so to bring 
out and develop such originality as they possess. 

Physical Ideals 

This is a continuation of the ''Physical Develop- 
ment" work described previously, which should 

10 



148 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

be continued right through the grammar school. 
As the boys become older, it is easier to interest 
them in their own muscular development, and it is 
well to have, now and then, a speaker from the 
outside come in and talk to the boys on this 
subject, and impress them with the fact that their 
character and mentaUty largely depend upon their 
physical ''get-up." If some well-known athlete 
can be induced to give a short talk on such sub- 
jects, now and then, the results are Hkely to be 
most encouraging. 

Manners 

When a boy gets to be about thirteen years old 
he often becomes unmannerly or more rough and 
boisterous than usual. This, of course, is very 
natural; but it is also proper for a boy to learn 
self-control at this time, if he is ever to possess 
this quality. The adolescent boy, however, is 
more anxious than his younger brother to know 
the reason why, and adolescence frequently begins 
before a boy is thirteen. So, not only should the 
customary forms of politeness be insisted upon in 
the class room, but these forms should be consid- 
ered, one at a time, discussed, and the reasons 
for their being made clear. Table manners may 
be taken up realistically, by having a miniature 
table set and having a boy or girl illustrate the 
proper handling of knife, fork, and spoon, under 
criticism of the rest of the class. As usual, the 



TWELVE YEARS 149 

criticism of a class is more effective than that of 
the teacher in such cases. The girls, of course, 
would be more interested in the arrangement of 
the table itself, and this may be taken up also. 

Reporting results of observations is helpful. 
The children might be asked to look for certain 
instances where ordinary rules of politeness are 
broken, as well as to notice actions that proclaim 
the actor to be better-mannered than the average. 

The general subject of manners should be 
brought up several times during the year, perhaps 
taking a special division each time. For instance, 
on one day behavior in public generally might be 
considered, on another day behavior towards 
women, towards the aged, and towards the phys- 
ically weak, on another day the value of cheer- 
fulness may be considered in contrast to grum- 
bling, fault-finding, and ill-nature, and so on. 
In this manner such subjects might be considered 
as choice of words, generosity, and egotism. 

After each discussion it might be well to have 
the children write a short resum^ of it in a note- 
book kept for the purpose. There is little that 
makes ideas clear and concise so well as does 
writing them down with pen and ink. 

Natural History 

The subject of natural history should begin 
with a careful study of the principles of botany. 



150 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

The children should be provided with simple, 
untechnical text-books on the subject and lessons 
given as a regular part of the school work. The 
children should be taught not only to recognize 
different types of plants, but should be given a 
knowledge of basic structures — the physiology, so 
to speak, in a simple way, of the parts of plants 
that have to do with its reproduction. 

A strong effort should also be made to interest 
the children in plants for their own sake. Grow- 
ing, collecting, observing, and keeping illustrated 
note-books are valuable. 

Courage 

Ask the children to tell what they understand 
by courage. It might be a good plan to write 
each different definition on the board. Perhaps, 
then, the definitions can be condensed or sum- 
marized so that the children will see that a 
courageous person is one who keeps cool and does 
what should be done in time of danger or great 
stress, or a person who will do what is right 
regardless of opposition and threats, or a person 
who will accomplish a great and disagreeable task 
because it is a matter of duty, or a person who is 
cheerful under difficult circumstances, and so on. 

When the children have gained definite ideas as 
to the meaning of courage, have them present the 
names of historical persons Vvho seem particularly 



TWELVE YEARS 151 

courageous, and when a child presents a name, 
have him explain why he thinks that person was 
courageous. Great generals or warriors are likely 
to be presented first. Naturally a man who 
risks his life for a cause shows great courage. 
Ask the children what they would think of 
scientists who would enter a plague-smitten city 
in order to combat the plague and to find means 
for its prevention as well as its cure. This is 
combat again, of course, at the risk of their lives. 
Let the children discuss the relative merits of a 
soldier who fights an enemy with rifle or sword 
and of a physician who fights a disease. Does 
one require a greater amount of courage than the 
other? There may be doubt about this. Is the 
object for which the courage is expended higher 
in one case than another? One means the death 
of human beings with every effort to make the 
death certain, and the other is to save human 
beings from misery and death. Furthermore, one 
can more easily avoid a human enemy than one 
can a malignant cause of a contagious disease. 
The soldier risks his life and feels sure of a certain 
glory if he is killed. The physician on the trail 
of a plague risks his life, not knowing when he 
may be ambushed by the plague, to die, perhaps, 
a loathsome death with mighty little glory. The 
soldier is necessary if nations, at the present stage 
of civilization, are to retain their nationality; but 



152 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

the war against disease is far more necessary, for 
it is continuous year after year. 

When the children reahze that there is a higher 
heroism than that of the soldier, and of a dif- 
ferent kind, ask them to think over it a day or 
two, and see if they cannot find examples of high 
courage right at hand in every-day life. Some 
will think first of firemen and of the poHce who 
risk their lives frequently, but lead them to 
search for less spectacular examples — of widows, 
for instance, who without complaint work hard 
and support their children, of men who have lost 
everything and have cheerfully begun again at 
the bottom of the ladder and ''made good," of 
boys who in spite of poverty and sometimes of 
physical injury, have been able to fight their way 
through the high school and into college, and so 
on. The world is full of examples of fine heroism 
in every-day life, and the children can be led to 
reahze this by the method suggested. 

When this has been accomplished, they may 
consider ways in which a school boy or school 
girl can show courage. Lead them to see that 
being cheerful under difficult circumstances is a 
great accomplishment, and a valuable one, that 
takes considerable courage. This has been 
realized for its full value by those able men who 
have developed the ideas behind the ''Boy Scout" 
movement. Ask a Boy Scout, if there happens to 



TWELVE YEARS 153 

be one in the class, what the "Scout" law says 
about cheerfulness. In the Scout Manual of 1911 
rule number eight is as follows: 



A scout is cheerful. He smiles whenever he can. 
His obedience to orders is prompt and cheery. He 
never shirks nor grumbles at hardships. 

It is hard for a child to be cheerful in the usual 
tedium and restraint of the class room, and it is 
sometimes hard for a child to be cheerful at home 
when required to do something to aid the mother 
or father or when a request is denied. Have the 
children develop the idea that one of the most 
important and difficult ways in which a boy or 
girl can show courage is, under such circum- 
stances, by being cheerful and smiling when one 
would rather be ''grumpy" and disagreeable. 

Have the children also develop the idea that a 
boy or girl shows courage of a very high order 
when he or she resists the temptation to do or 
say something that is not right. Make the chil- 
dren see that it is a very creditable thing to "win 
out" in a fight of this kind; for it requires the 
same kind of courage that a soldier requires in 
going into battle, only in this case the battle is for 
the sake of character, and character is a very 
important thing. 



154 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Modesty 

Children are naturally egotists. Everything 
has been done for them and little has been 
required of them. In the olden days when cities 
were very small and the bulk of the population 
lived in the country or on farms, or at least with 
gardens and a cow or two, there were many 
"chores" which fell to the share of the children, 
to their immense benefit. The average American 
child grows up to be twelve or thirteen without 
having had the discipline — the necessary dis- 
cipline — of regular duties to perform; and the 
wealthier the family, the fewer the duties, and 
the more useless the final character of the child. 
Some misguided, or unguided, parents think there 
is something ''lowering" in having their sons and 
daughters do things with their hands. It is 
possibly for this reason that the introduction of 
practical manual training is being adopted by the 
private schools so slowly and reluctantly. Those 
who desire it there have first to combat the 
ignorance of its real value in mental and moral 
development, as well as the prejudice against 
doing anything useful with the hands. This is 
not always the fault of the head-masters. The 
head-master of an old and prosperous private 
academy has told the writer many times that he 
has ''just as good a school as the parents will let 
him have," and to a large extent he is right. 



TWELVE YEARS 155 

The writer knows of one summer camp for 
boys in which nothing is done for a boy that he 
can do for himself. Some of the boys come from 
very wealthy families, and they arrive there with 
a vast and deep-rooted egotism grown upon false 
ideas of their importance and of their prospective 
wealth. The director of that camp declares that 
no case of self-conceit arriving there has been able 
to survive the boy's washing of his own towels 
and stockings. 

This incident has been related to emphasize 
the point that practical manual work of some 
kind aids a child in obtaining valuable qualities, 
mainly, as regards our particular subject, helpful- 
ness and modesty, one generally going with the 
other. 

Ask the children to tell why certain people are 
useful in the world, as, ''Why are police useful?" 
''Why are raihoads useful?" "Of what use are 
factories?" Bring out here the value to pro- 
ducer as well as to consumer. "How are chil- 
dren useful?" "Are children generally useful?" 
Cause the children to see that not many children 
are really of use in the world while they are 
children, whatever they may do when they are 
older. Yet a child is capable of being very use- 
ful in many ways. Have the children describe 
ways in which boys and girls can be of real help, 
in the home, in the school, and in the city. 



156 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Develop the idea that as, even when they do their 
best, children are not remarkably useful after all, 
there is no great reason for conceit. Ask them to 
tell what kind of children appear to be the most 
conceited. Many will say that the most con- 
ceited are those whose parents have more than 
the average in the neighborhood. Make them see 
that what a parent accomplishes brings great 
credit to the parent, but that the child of that 
parent, having nothing to do with the accom- 
plishment, certainly can take no personal claim to 
glory in it. Ask the children to tell the condi- 
tions under which a child, or any one else, may 
feel pride. They should bring out the idea that 
real credit should go to any one who really does 
anything that is useful and worth while. But 
however much one person may do, it is always 
easy to find examples of others who have done 
very much more, so that conceit is generally silly. 
If the children are led to see conceit as something 
silly, they are less likely to show or to feel it. 

Games and AtMetic Clubs 

Later on something will be said concerning the 
educational value of many plays and games. 
But it may be well to emphasize at this point 
the value of certain kinds of games for children 
entering adolescence; for the fact is, that certain 
valuable qualities may be gained far more easily 



TWELVE YEARS 167 

through play than through a vast amount of 
cut-and-dried class-room work. 

The boy, upon entering adolescence, begins to 
show a liking for co-operative games. It is the 
great time for forming clubs — or gangs, which 
are the same thing, whatever their purpose. 
Adults often, mistakenly or ill-advisedly, endeavor 
to prevent boys from forming such clubs or from 
joining any. Of course there are clubs and clubs. 
The so-called '^ secret fraternities," particularly 
school-boy fraternities, can be of little value and 
often are of great harm, not only because they 
tend to create ''classes," but also because the 
influences allowed free foot in such associations 
are not what they might be. But it is a far 
cry from the school-boy secret fraternity to a 
boys' athletic club, baseball club, or even the 
little informal groupings of boys which all normal 
boys get into, if they have any luck, and which 
are generally grouped about some dominant 
leader, whose influence is not bad, generally, and 
often very good. 

It is a natural impulse to form such associa- 
tions, and the proper thing for adults to do is 
not to attempt to crush the impulse, but to let 
it develop naturally under proper care and not 
too obvious supervision. A good and natural 
impulse, if repressed, often becomes perverted. 

For these reasons, this is a good time to en- 



158 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

courage the boys, and the girls too, as far as 
possible, to engage in group games appropriate 
to their age and strength. For the boys few 
games are better than baseball, and ''soccer" 
football is not bad. Regular American foot- 
ball, however, is not at all well adapted for boys, 
and is rather dangerous for any who have not 
attained a physique that is nearly mature. 

For the average city school it would be diffi- 
cult to have either soccer or baseball to any 
extent, unless the city is provided with playgrounds 
more than are most cities. Still, much can be 
done along such lines, and there are a number 
of manuals of group games which can be used 
even in fairly restricted school yards, and these, 
as has been said, will be named later. 




Muscles Wokthy of the Name 



CHAPTER VI 

Children of Thirteen Years 

We are entirely too apt to think that most boys 
receive their final preparation for life in the 
high school. And yet all who know anything 
about the subject are fully aware that only a 
small percentage of pubUc-school boys ever reach 
the high school, and that a very great number 
leave school promptly at fourteen. Therefore, 
if they are to receive a training that will help 
to fit them for the work for which they are best 
fitted and at the same time give them certain 
broad ideas concerning the different occupations, 
with the requirements and possibiUties of each, 
then the age of thirteen should mark the begin- 
ning of really effective work along such lines. 

Vocational Guidance 

In directing discussion along occupational lines 
there are several points to consider and remember. 
Vocational Guidance is not altogether a new thing, 
but in many plans there is a serious fault, in that 
various occupations are made to appear so attract- 
ive that the children will be tempted to leave 

(159) 



160 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

school before they have to in order to take up 
what appears to be more interesting work. So, 
for one thing, if we are to have a plan for voca- 
tional guidance, it must be made a part of the 
plan so to present matters that the children will 
see the value and necessity for as much schoohng 
as possible, if they are to do well in the occupa- 
tions that seem pleasing to them. As the average 
boy or girl does not see the real necessity for 
school to any great extent, this should be a point 
kept clearly in mind in arranging any vocational- 
guidance plan. 

Here is another point. When a boy really 
must leave school and work at an early age, he 
generally looks up the ''want ads" in a news- 
paper and takes the first thing he can get, without 
much thought as to the character of the work 
ahead of him or of his fitness for that work. The 
average boy has few definite ideas, anyway, con- 
cerning most occupations. A plan for vocational 
guidance, therefore, should arrange for some sys- 
tem by means of which children could gain a 
certain amount of knowledge concerning the dif- 
ferent kinds of trades and their possibiHties, so 
that they would enter into any one of them with 
open eyes. 

The last point is also important. Many boys 
of thirteen have rather definite ideas as to what 
they would like to take up. Many others, if 



THIRTEEN YEARS 161 

given knowledge as suggested, would be likely 
to put their minds upon one of the trades with 
the possibilities of which they had been made 
acquainted. Thus a comprehensive plan for 
vocational guidance should make it possible for 
a boy to gain a considerable amount of valuable 
information concerning any of the commoner 
trades, so that when the time came for him to 
work, he could start with a fair foundation of 
right ideas concerning that work which would 
enable him to make progress, for one thing, and 
have a proper ambition for the future, for another 
thing. 

Perhaps we should add another requirement, if 
our plan is going to make for an effective voca- 
tional guidance. It should be seen to that as 
much as possible is done to encourage proper 
relations between employers and the employed. 
In the pubUc schools we have a great opportunity, 
for, taking them all in all, we have in them 
both classes in potentiaUty — employers and em- 
ployed. In every class in the school are boys 
who will fall into one rank or the other. All 
will begin as employees, to be sure, and some will 
develop into employers. In the pubUc schools of 
today are the vast majority of the employers and 
employees of a score of years from now. To 
work for proper relations between the two types 
of men at present is a most difficult task. The 



162 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

strike and the lock-out do not help much towards 
a better mutual understanding. Thoughtful 
people can see only too well that things are not 
as they should be. Where there should be co- 
operation there is antagonism, and where there 
should be friendship there is often a cold, abiding 
enmity. 

A variety of reasons have caused this situation, 
all too complicated and deep for us to detail 
here. One cause, of course, is the ''absentee" 
employer — the man who resides in Boston and 
owns a mill in Illinois, which he never visits, and 
from which he requires only profits of his repre- 
sentative in charge — profits which the representa- 
tive is bound to get to insure his tenure of office. 
A few years back, before the building of the giant 
corporations, the factory- and mill-owners resided 
by their factories and mills, and knew their 
people personally, and so there was often a mutual 
regard, co-operation, and, of coiuse, prosperity. 
In a great many places such conditions still exist, 
but tens of thousands find employment by vast 
corporations owned by a little cUque of wealthy 
men who may rarely see them, or by widely 
scattered stockholders, more insistent upon their 
dividends that anything else. Co-operation under 
such circumstances is no simple matter. 

And then, too, we have a vast amount of cheap 
labor brought into the country during the last 



THIRTEEN YEARS 163 

few decades. Employing cheaper labor means 
higher profits, to be sure, and once labor is paid 
cheaply, it is difficult to increase the wage. And 
yet the cost of living inevitably increases as the 
wealth of a country increases. So that thousands 
and scores of thousands find their wage more 
and more insufficient, and because of the lack 
of co-operation between employee and employer, 
largely because the latter is often an impersonal 
employer, the employees have to resort to vio- 
lent means in order to obtain even temporary 
relief. 

These, with a variety of other reasons, help 
to prevent the relations between the employer 
and employee from being anything like what 
they should be. In many cases there is 
almost constant warfare of some kind, and the 
result is a wrong attitude of employers toward 
their employees, as well as of employees to- 
ward their employers. All idea of co-operation 
seems to be lost in many cases. Where unions 
are strong, the employers seem to look upon them 
as dangerous and arrogant menaces to industry, 
always ready to fight for wage increases whether 
the condition of the industry warrants it or not, 
and quite aside from the actual value of the 
services rendered. And indeed, in some cases, 
it is hkely that labor organizations of one kind 
or another have fought for increases that were 
II 



164 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

quite unjustified. On the other hand, of course, 
it has been necessary for the employees of many 
concerns to strike in order to obtain a just com- 
pensation. Like everything else, there are two 
sides to the question, only the employee and em- 
ployer classes seem unable to reaUze that there 
is any other than their own side. 

I used the term ''employee and employer 
classes" advisedly. But there is no stable per- 
manent class, so to speak, or rather the members 
of either class are not permanently so, for there 
is a constant changing from one to the other, 
and an almost infinite number of gradations, so 
that it is hard to draw a line and say here is 
where being an employee ends and being an 
employer begins. There is no set or class of men 
who are permanently and hereditarily employ- 
ers, except the extremely few who inherit large 
properties — a number exceedingly small in pro- 
portion to the population — and even these do not 
constitute a permanent class, for a generation or 
two sees their return to the employee class, in 
some capacity or other. 

As most employers begin as employees, and 
as most employees receive their education to a 
large extent in the public schools, the teacher, 
at this most impressionable time in a child's 
life, can do much to give the child strong ideas 
and right ones on this general subject, which 



THIRTEEN YEARS 165 

will help him to have a right attitude towards 
his eraployer, and not only so, but to have a 
right attitude toward his subordinates and his 
employees, if he should happen to have them. 
That is, we must foster and develop a spirit of 
co-operation, a spirit based upon a knowledge of 
the advantages — the mutual advantages of co- 
operation between the employer and the employee, 
and between the foreman and manager and his 
subordinates. Somehow a form of co-operation 
is going to be developed affecting the relations 
of the classes we have been discussing. It may 
come by mutual agreement, and it may come 
through legislation. However it does come, come 
it will, and it will be a compromise between the 
fatuous ideas of one type of pseudo-sociaUsts 
who demand the doing away with employers 
entirely, and the ideas of the czar-like employer, 
who tyrannizes over his employees. 

Co-operation is becoming more and more of a 
necessity, and the schools can do an immense 
amount of good in aiding the development of 
this spirit. Schools are supposed to educate 
children for hfe, considering their needs, and it 
should be just as much a part of education to 
prepare children for the occupational side of their 
life as it is to teach them concerning the heights 
of Himalayan mountains and the voyages of 
Henry Hudson. 



166 CHARACTER DEVELOPJMENT 

Let us sum up all these ideas. A plan for voca- 
tional guidance should make a child see the 
value of school and desire to get as much of 
school as possible; it should give him an idea 
as to the nature of different trades and occupa- 
tions in a manner that will cause him to become 
interested in the one which appeals most to him 
and to which he is best fitted; it should enable 
the child to learn many essentials concerning the 
occupation in which he takes the most interest; 
and it should endeavor to make the child see 
clearly the necessity for close and friendly co- 
operation between the employee and employer. 
Perhaps, too, to make the plan complete, the 
school should control an employment bureau 
which would help the children to obtain the 
positions to which they are best fitted, after mak- 
ing certain that the child is not able to remain 
in school any longer. Finally, the whole plan 
should be made considering the natural char- 
acteristics of children, so that they can be ap- 
pealed to by methods that make the strongest 

appeal. 

Outline of Method 

All boys like to belong to clubs. Sometimes 
these are the so-called ''gangs." Sometimes 
they are little friendly, unorganized, rather im- 
promptu, groupings. It is the natural tendency 
of boys at the beginning of adolescence to belong 



THIRTEEN YEARS 167 

to organizations of this kind. Gangs should 
not be suppressed. They should be regulated 
and their energies turned along useful and de- 
velopmental lines. Therefore, in each school, 
or in a group of schools, have organized a num- 
ber of clubs to which boys of thirteen and over 
are eligible. As to what kinds of clubs to have, 
that must depend largely upon the class of chil- 
dren in the school, the locality, the common 
industries in that locality, and so on. 

Hand each boy a card, upon which he is to 
give the name of the occupation he thinks he 
would like and his father's occupation. In this 
manner you can obtain the names of, say, half a 
dozen occupations most common to the desires 
of the boys of the school. The cards will also 
show in what occupations a majority of the 
parents are engaged. Announce to the boys 
that clubs will be formed — clubs for boys inter- 
ested in electricity, for instance, in civil engineer- 
ing, in house-building, in masonry, and so on. 
Of course clubs cannot be developed for all the 
different occupations mentioned as desirable by 
the boys on their cards, but a few can be selected 
among those receiving the most votes. 

The next thing to do is to obtain leaders for 
the clubs. This may be a difficult matter some- 
times. For the clubs developed by the writer 
leaders were obtained among the students of a 



168 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

neighboring university — students who had had 
practical experience along the lines of the different 
clubs, and who were working their way through 
college, and so were glad to earn a little money 
by using extra time in such a manner. The 
ideal way would be to have men experienced in 
the different occupations in charge of the clubs. 
As the membership of each club is not likely to 
be large, two or three schools could combine their 
clubs under one leader for each occupation studied. 
The clubs should meet once a week. The 
writer has found it possible to get a considerable 
number of earnest college men for leaders for 
$2 per meeting. With us, the clubs met imme- 
diately after school on designated afternoons. 
A ''secretary" for each club was a boy elected 
by his fellow members, and the secretary kept 
account of those who attended and what they 
did. 

The program varied. The civil engineers, for 
instance, would go on one occasion to look over 
the building of a railroad bridge in the vicinity. 
In fact they would pay such a bridge several 
visits and make a study of it, taking notes and 
making drawings. Then, again, they would 
visit some great building operation, where several 
different branches of civil engineering could be 
illustrated. The leader would endeavor, through 
the year, to make his group acquainted with the 



THIRTEEN YEARS 169 

dijfferent branches of his subject by showing the 
boys actual examples, explaining the work to 
them. Prizes were offered for the best note- 
books kept during the year, general comprehen- 
sion and neatness being two main criteria. 

As was done with civil engineering, so it was 
with the other occupations taken up. It was 
found that the boys took an immense interest in 
such things. The clubs were made real clubs 
as far as possible, and no boy could be a member 
who did not possess one of the physical develop- 
ment buttons described in a previous lesson. 
In fact it was made a point to impress them with 
the fact that physical fitness went a long way 
to aid in mental and moral fitness, and that a 
good workman should have a good physique. 

These httle clubs should have regular club- 
rooms, where they can meet at regular intervals, 
discuss subjects connected with their particular 
vocation, and perhaps have a small library of 
books and periodicals concerned with their work. 
One room might do for several clubs, by giving 
each club a book-case and a different meeting 
time. 

All this work can be aided by means of talks 
given to the assembled boys of the upper grades, 
say at the time of the morning exercises, as has 
been done in the Philadelphia work. It stimu- 
lates the boys greatly to have representatives 



170 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

come from the vocational world, so to speak, 
and talk concerning the kind of workers needed 
in the different fields of endeavor. A civil en- 
gineer might come and talk concerning the pos- 
sibiUties and the large field of civil engineering, 
and what preparation is needed for success in 
such work, and what good characteristics boys 
should have who expect to take it up. A repre- 
sentative might come from some large depart- 
ment store, and describe the kind of boy desired 
in his business. There was an excellent talk 
of this character given by a representative of the 
great Wanamaker store of Philadelphia. First 
he assured the boys that they did not desire 
boys who wanted to work merely because they 
were tired of school. The more schooling a boy 
had, the more desirable he was from their stand- 
point. He told how a boy must be neat, must 
have no bad habits, and must have good manners 
to keep his position in that great store, and said 
that it was the duty of each boy employed there 
to study ahead of his position, so that, by show- 
ing a proper and effective interest in the business 
of the concern, he could advance to better and 
better positions, instead of remaining a mere 
errand boy until his age made his dismissal 
necessary. 

Such points, coming from a man directly con- 
cerned in such a business, appeal strongly to 



THIRTEEN YEARS 171 

boys of the age considered. One such talk each 
month would be of very great benefit, especially if 
it were given by representatives of different voca- 
tions, so that the boys would gain a broad out- 
look in such matters. 

Co-operation in Business 

Ask the boys the following questions, and have 
them consider and then discuss their own answers : 

Under what circumstances could employees justly 
complaio. of their employers? (Develop these ideas: 
too small a compensation for the work done, too little 
protection from fire and other dangers, too little care 
of workers injured in. the work, and too little share 
iQ the prosperity of the business.) 

Under what circumstances can employers justly 
complain of their employees? (When employees do 
poor work, when employees do less work than they 
are paid for, when employees are careless with com- 
pany property, when employees are not loyal to their 
company, and when employees combine to force their 
employers to give them privileges or wages beyond 
what they deserve.) 

It might be a good plan to give the general topic 
to the children, have them think over the matter 
for a few days, and then write compositions, 
giving their opinions. In all cases, endeavor to 
develop the desired ideas from the children, rather 



172 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

than make the work ineffective by giving the 
children the ideas point blank. Besides, many 
children, whose parents are workers, and are 
vitally concerned with these very problems, 
will bring to the school very interesting and 
intimate viewpoints, the discussion of which would 
prove valuable to all. In this way many false 
ideas can be crushed. 

Ask the children to find out what a labor union 
is, and why unions are often necessary. Also ask 
them to think over the dangers and mistakes of 
unions. Develop the idea that through unions, 
workers, otherwise helpless, can secure a fair 
share of the income of a concern, and good treat- 
ment generally, and also that unions sometimes 
endanger the very existence of concerns by de- 
manding more for the workers than is their just 
share. 

Offer some small prize for the child who gives, 
after careful reflection, the best advice concerning 
the relations that should exist between employee 
and employer, whether the latter is an individual 
or a corporation with a wide scattering of hundreds 
of stockholders. Develop the idea that the solu- 
tion is co-operation, not only financially, but in 
every way. The workers, therefore, should take 
a direct active interest in the success of their 
company, the increasing prosperity of which should 
benefit the workers as well as the managers and 



THIRTEEN YEARS 173 

owners. A suggestion might be that all profits 
over a certain reasonable percentage would be 
shared between employers and employees. This, 
of course, is no new idea, and is being carried out 
more and more widely each year in different 
places. This is generally accomplished by mak- 
ing it possible for employees to own shares of 
the company stock. In other instances profits 
in excess of a certain percentage are shared among 
the employees. The result is that the employees 
take a personal interest in the affairs and pros- 
perity of the concerns, such as used to be taken> 
no doubt, in the small concerns of yesterday, 
in which the owner was one individual who knew 
all his employees personally — to their mutual 
respect and regard. 

On one or two occasions addresses to the chil- 
dren of twelve years and older by employers and 
even representatives of unions might be the basis 
of much good. After the carrying on of such a 
program for the last two years of a boy's school 
life, you may feel sure that he will enter the 
world of work with his eyes open, and with very 
clear and wholesome ideas concerning the problems 
which he will have to face — whether as an employer 
or employee. 

Each school should have a "vocational" li- 
brary, in which should be found books having 
simple descriptions of different trades and occu- 



174 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

pations, as well as a number of magazines spe- 
cializing in such matters. 

It should be remembered that this ''occupa- 
tional morality" program is not for the thirteen- 
year-old class only, but for all boys over thirteen, 
as well as girls, for as long as they are in the 
grammar-school, or in the private-school classes 
of corresponding rank. 

Thrift and Waste 

Have the children consider the following ques- 
tions, and lead them to arrive at the proper an- 
swers themselves. 

What does money represent? (Money represents 
labor.) 

How should we consider labor? (Our whole civiliza- 
tion, its progress and comfort depend upon labor. 
A country succeeds or falls according to the character 
of its workmen. Therefore labor or work should be 
looked upon as something almost, if not quite, sacred, 
and for this reason, money, which represents labor, 
should be used with care, and never wasted or abused.) 

What are proper uses for money? (Paying for one's 
food, home, clothes, and the like, paying towards the 
expenses of the government, helping those who need 
and deserve help, and paying for legitimate pleasure.) 

What are some abuses of money? (Spending too 
much for pleasures, spending any at all for improper, 
coarse, harmful, or unhealthy pleasures, spending 



THIRTEEN YEARS 175 

money for "show," which may include tawdry orna- 
ments and showy clothes generally, and particularly 
spending money merely to impress some one who 
has not so much. Purchasing things that are unneces- 
sary. Betting.) 

Why is betting wrong? 

Why should money be saved when possible? (Be- 
cause of the actual self -discipline; the lessons in 
management; the feeling of power, readiness, etc.; 
the self-dependence; for the money that money earns.) 

What good is there in saving money? (In case of 
necessity there is something to depend upon. A man 
who never saves — a man who never has a little "put 
by" — is in desperate straits when any emergency, 
such as accident, fire, or the like, happens; for then, 
being unable to meet the unusual expense, he must 
borrow or beg, in the first place putting himself in 
a debt which may hang on for a long time, or, in the 
second event, lowering his manhood by begging for 
the means that he should have put by.) 

Have the children think over the topic for a 
few days and then write on paper the best rea- 
sons, from their knowledge, why one should save 
what might otherwise be wasted. Have them 
describe such events as they have observed them- 
selves, wherein misery or great distress was 
caused by wasting instead of saving. 

Encourage the children to save themselves, 
even if it is only a penny or two now and then. 
School banks are very helpful, especially if chil- 



176 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

dren are encouraged to save for some specific 
purpose in which they are interested. It was 
found that the boys of a school would take great 
interest in such a bank when they could save 
their money in order to be able to spend several 
weeks camping in the summer. 

Domestic Science 

This work has been described in some detail 
already under the title ''Housewifery." The 
work along these lines, started with children of 
ten and eleven years, is to be continued through- 
out the grammar school; only, as the girls grow 
older, their viewpoint must be made broader and 
higher, so that they will come to look upon the 
home as the power it really is. They should 
know what a clean and pure home means for a 
country, and what happens when a home is the 
reverse. As the director of this part of the Phila- 
delphia experiment said: ''Our idea is to make 
the girls love the woman's part in home-making, 
and then teach them how to do that work. This 
home-making instinct is strong in young girls, 
and if they have a chance to develop it in an 
attractive way, at this time, it may stay with 
them." 

Briefly, though this work is not generally put 
under "vocational guidance," that is what it 
really is; for the chief vocation of true women 



THIRTEEN YEAHS 177 

lies within the home, and a very great deal of the 
unhappiness of the world exists because of home 
conditions resulting from ignorance. Among 
the very poor the women are rarely good cooks. 
In fact, the diet is sometimes frightful, not only 
in the ill choice of materials, but also in their 
preparation. Girls of thirteen and fourteen can 
be easily led to see the importance of such 
matters, so that they will develop a newer and 
better idea of home and of home work. 

At this age particularly the study of the care of 
infants should be made an important matter. 
When one considers how great a proportion of 
public school girls leave school at the age of 
fourteen, it is easy to see the necessity of such 
work at this time, instead of some later period, 
when the girl is of high-school age — the point 
being that very few go to high schools. A very 
considerable proportion go into the factory, or 
take up some other occupation which keeps them 
busily — sometimes too busily — employed till they 
are married; so that they are likely to begin 
housekeeping possessed of that blissful ignorance 
which causes the inefficiency and disorder of so 
many little homes. 

So the housekeeping center should pay atten- 
tion to training these future mothers and house- 
keepers. Also the school nurse, and perhaps a 
woman physician, experienced in talking to girls, 



178 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

should give regular lectures in the little model 
home; and the department of physical training 
should take a hand, and see to it that these girls 
receive the kind of physical exercise they need. 
Perhaps this phase of the work is the most impor- 
tant of all, laboring as it does for the conservation 
of the home. 

Reading 

Character has been termed the ''sum of one's 
ideas," and the definition is fairly adequate. The 
commonest manner of giving right ideas is by 
means of conversation or by reading. If there is 
one result of chief value in good reading, it is its 
effect upon the character of the reader. If read- 
ing can aid greatly in character-making, we 
should carefully plan the reading of school chil- 
dren so that this great lever can be used to best 
effect. Unfortunately, however, that is the one 
aspect of the matter which teachers and school 
authorities seem to neglect. They seem to have 
an entirely different object in giving reading 
matter to the children. Their object, seemingly, 
is to make grammarians, or novehsts, or poets of 
them all! And this is done by what may be 
termed the "coroner's inquest method." 

To explain. The reading matter selected has 
usually little connection with the natural tastes of 
children of the age and sex for whom they were 
designed. The average reading list contains 



THIRTEEN YEARS 179 

books which the planner thinks contain the kind 
of material with which a child ought to become 
acquainted. People at all acquainted with the 
tastes of normal children find much material for 
mirth in some of these selections. The writer 
has seen, for instance, a great husky boy of 
fourteen raging because he must read Kingsley's 
Water Babies, and not only read it, but be able to 
pick out the participial phrases and the com- 
pound-complex sentences! Kingsley's Water 
Babies is charming no doubt, and would appeal to 
children of, perhaps, seven or eight. As to the 
digging out of the grammatical anatomical entities 
— well, that is what might be termed the '^ cor- 
oner's inquest method" of teaching English 
literature, and developing a love for the same. 
Preposterous! Suppose that by accident a child 
might happen to like one of the selections forced 
upon him. Well, you could wager safely almost 
anything that after a few analyses of sentences he 
will lose all his interest. And yet we take the 
beautiful short poems of Milton, which even boys 
of fifteen might think beautiful, and forthwith 
cause these boys to dissect the poems, inch by 
inch and member by member — a highly dis- 
agreeable, if not indecent performance — all under 
the pleasing supposition that thereby the boy 
will gain an appreciation for poetry and abandon 
his Sherlock Holmes for the Ring and the Book. 

12 



180 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

The result of this anatomical method is that the 
boy forever and ever hates those poems of Milton 
as he would the devil — and doubtless very much 
more. This is not teaching a love for literature. 
It is a grammatical pathology of a very perni- 
cious kind. 

Analyze an emotion and it is gone. Analyze 
the beautiful, and it is beautiful no longer. We 
do not admire the water-fall the more when we 
are told how many horsepower it could develop 
with a turbine. The fragrance of a flower is 
much more pleasing in itself than any amount of 
study concerning its volatile oils. Whitman put 
the thing in a manner typical of himself: 

"When I heard the leam'd astronomer; 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in 

columns before me; 
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, 

to add, divide and measure them; 
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where 

he lectured with much applause in the 

lecture-room. 
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and 

sick; 
Till, rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by 

myself. 
In the mystical, moist night-air, and from time 

to time, 
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars." 



THIRTEEN YEARS 181 

This teaching of masses of grammar is a delu- 
sion and a snare and a weariness to the flesh. 
Fm-thermore, it fails to give the results claimed 
for it — and by a very large margin. One does 
not learn to speak correctly by reading rules in a 
book, but by hearing and by reading! Hearing 
and reading! If you wish the children to speak 
good English and to love good literature, do not 
try to accompUsh it by means of a grammar, a 
rhetoric, and a metaphorical scalpel; but give 
the children reading, and quantities of it. Read 
to them, and provide books for their reading. 
Choose books that they will naturally enjoy — 
not merely books that you think "good for 
them." You have to fit the curriculum to the 
child, not the reverse. I have found that normal 
boys of fourteen will become immensely interested 
in the straight narrative of Les Miserables, and 
read it understanding^ and appreciatively from 
beginning to end, and that boys of fifteen will 
become enthusiastic over The Cloister and the 
Hearth! Why the whole treasure of world- 
hterature is open to you to choose from! Select 
what is fine and good, and interesting. And do 
not look for compound-complex sentences and 
participial I-donH-know-whafs. They are futile. 
And you will see your reward in an increasing 
appreciation of, and liking for, what is fine and 
good in literature, and, with it, will come a large 



182 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

increase in vocabulary and an added sum of ideas! 
When a boy reads a book that interests him 
greatly, and when that book teaches a great and 
important moral, the teaching becomes a part 
of that boy's mental make-up, a part of his 
character. 

So put the time you waste with the com- 
plexities of English grammar into reading interest- 
ing books to your pupils, and having them read 
interesting books, too, and great will be your 
reward hereafter! 

Later on will be given a list of books appro- 
priate for children of different ages and in dif- 
ferent stages of development. 

Sex Hygiene 

There is perhaps no problem so serious or so 
greatly and diversely discussed as that of teach- 
ing sex-hygiene. And when we speak of teaching 
it, we generally mean teaching it directly, and in 
the lower grades as well as in the higher. 

That there is need of some such action is 
beyond doubt, but when we come down to actual 
methods, there is a sudden halting. 

In the series of lessons presented thus far there 
is no direct teaching of sex-hygiene. But there is 
much that will reach this matter indirectly, and 
perhaps no less strongly for that. The physical- 
development work as outlined for the boys can 



THIRTEEN YEARS 183 

be used as an opening wedge, and in fact it has 
acted strongly against the formation and con- 
tinuance of the bad habits of boyhood. 

With the girls, the work of the housekeeping 
center and particularly the actual work with 
infants, aided by the talks given in the so-called 
''baby classes," also make strongly for clean 
living. It is, to be sure, by the indirect method, 
and the more the writer studies the characteristics 
of children, the more closely he is acquainted with 
the personalities of the many children with whom 
he continually comes in contact, the more certain 
it seems that such direct sex-hygiene teaching as 
there should be before, say the age of fifteen, 
should be given almost, if not quite individually, 
fitting the teaching to the individual needs. And 
perhaps the reason for this is that children all of 
one age are not necessarily in the same stage of 
development. A boy of thirteen may be a "pre- 
pubescent," a pubescent or a "post-pubescent." 
The three stages of physical development mean 
three different types of characteristics. What 
would be eminently good for one might be the 
reverse for the other. Of course it has been said 
that the ideal class in a school would contain 
children grouped according to physiological age 
instead of chronological. But this is not likely 
to be possible to any great extent. Conditions 
are too much for us. 



184 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

It is a mistake to consider children always in 
groups. On the other hand, the writer does not 
agree with those who hold for entirely individual 
teaching; for the latter means that the child will 
accomplish its work under conditions far different 
from those that obtain in the world. The stim- 
ulus of the class, and the competition, and the 
power of concentration gained by working amid 
distractions are most valuable. Nevertheless, 
when it comes down to specific character develop- 
ment, and particularly when it comes to such a 
subject as sex-hygiene, then it seems necessary to 
consider the individuals, and to work accordingly. 
It seems to the writer, too, that this peculiarly 
difficult work, if it is done directly at all, might 
be done by the medical staff, or by the physical- 
training staff, better than by individual teachers. 

Until the physical-training and the medical 
staffs are prepared for such work specially, it is 
probably much better to do the work — to accom- 
plish the same ends — by the more indirect meth- 
ods described in this book. 

Peace and War 

Have the children discuss peace and war, 
developing the advantages and the drawbacks of 
war. 

What evils are caused by war? (Death, often of 



THIRTEEN YEARS 185 

unwilling fighters and of innocent people as well; 
wounding and crippling of many men; disaster to 
many families because of the death of the father, 
the son, or the brother; loss to a nation in the crip- 
pling of many industries and necessary occupations; 
the creation of great debts.) 

What type of men are most likely to be made sol- 
diers? (Naturally the men who are physically most 
fit. In a long war more and more men are needed 
as men are lost in battles and through disease. So 
after a while a nation is largely drained of its best 
men, and an inferior physical type is left to carry 
on the country after the war. It is said that Napo- 
leon's wars reduced the average height of Frenchmen 
very materially.) 

When are wars necessary? (To preserve a nation, 
from aggression, to preserve the liberty of a people, 
to rescue another people from barbarous usage.) 

A war also develops firmness of character that is 
beneficial; it produces a mutual sacrifice for a mutual 
benefit; and it seems to increase the virile strength 
of a nation to a very considerable extent. 

Ask the children to detail the advantages of 
peace. Peace admits of a prosperity unknown in 
war; it admits of a progressive development of a 
people; and so on. The advantages are so many 
and so obvious that the children will think of 
many. Then have them write compositions on 
the general subject of peace and war, bringing 
out the greatest evils of war and the greatest 



186 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

advantages of peace. There is much virtue in 
writing things down: it crystalhzes thoughts and 
impresses them upon the memory. 

Patriotism 

The children should be interested in their coun- 
try. They should be made to feel that the 
United States is different from any other country, 
because it is a land where many nations have 
sent their sons and daughters to form a new 
people, which, we hope, will combine the fine 
points of all the races contributing. It is a coun- 
try to which the oppressed have come — ^people 
oppressed on account of their religion or their 
political ideas. They have come so that they 
may think in freedom. 

An emigrant is not compelled to come to the United 
States. He comes of his own free will. If he comes 
to enjoy the advantages of the land, he should respect 
the institutions and laws of the land also. Why 
should the new-comers study the laws and history 
of the country and why should they do all in their 
power to help on its progress? 

Why should those who are native-born, and whose 
parents and even grandparents are native-born, 
particularly love their country, and cherish its insti- 
tutions and its laws? (Because their forefathers 
built the country, fought for it, and preserved its 
unity. They left a proud history for us.) 



THIRTEEN YEARS 187 

This is a good time for the children to read, or 
have read to them, the Death of Socrates of Plato. 
There is doubtless a special edition prepared for 
schools. Even the story of the death of Socrates 
told the children as a story, might be useful in 
giving them an example of a high type of patriot- 
ism. The point to bring out, or have the children 
discover, is that Socrates was a man who spent 
his time looking for things that were true, and 
exposing things that were false. 

He exposed many who made much of themselves 
through false pretentions. The result was that when 
he was well along in years he had a great number of 
enemies — ^principally those whom he had shown up in 
their true worth and character. 

His enemies combined to make a false charge 
against him, which caused his arrest and trial. He 
refused to take an opportunity to leave the country 
before the trial, even though he felt reasonably sure 
that the trial would go against him, because the jury 
was made up of a great number of his enemies. 

Despite the fact that the charges against him were 
manifestly false, he was condemned to death, con- 
demned to drink hemlock poison, according to the 
custom of the people. 

When in prison, shortly before the day of his death, 
a friend, a man of great wealth, came to see him, and 
told him that all preparations were made so that 
Socrates could escape from the prison and the city, 
and take refuge in some more friendly country. 



188 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Socrates refused to take advantage of the oppor- 
tunity. His reason is important for us. He declared 
that no one could have stayed closer to his home 
city than Socrates stayed in Athens. He had never 
left it except when compelled to do so when the 
armies were called out. By living in the city he had 
acknowledged his satisfaction with it and with its 
laws. He did not have to live there if he had not 
chosen. He was perfectly free to settle elsewhere 
if he did not like the laws of Athens. But by remain- 
ing there he had shown his satisfaction with condi- 
tions there and with the laws of his city. 

Furthermore, he had for years taught young men 
to obey the laws. He had taught patriotism. Then 
what would be the effect on all his pupils and fol- 
lowers, he asked, if now, at his age, after years of 
talking to young men concerning the value of obeying 
the law, he should endeavor to evade the laws merely 
because they happened to go against him? The argu- 
ments given in Plato's work are excellent, and should 
be read to the class. Socrates therefore declined to 
escape, and his friend had to acknowledge that the old 
philosopher was right in so declining. And so, shortly 
afterwards, bravely and calmly, he did drink the hem- 
lock, surrounded by his closest friends, the coolest one 
of them all! 

Here was a man who was willing to die rather than 
evade the laws of his country. The example is a good 
one. 

The children should, now and then, if possible, 
be taken to local places of historic interest. Be- 



THIRTEEN YEARS 189 

fore the trip they should be made well acquainted 
with the story of the place to be seen, and every- 
thing possible should be done to cause them to see 
why each place should be interesting to them. 

Appearance and Personal Hygiene 

Have the children discuss this old saying: 
"Clothes do not make a man." Let the children 
decide what amount of truth there is in this. 
Develop the idea that though clothes do not make 
a man, or a woman, the character of a man or 
woman is often reflected in the clothes. Have 
them discuss how clothes can reflect character. 
How clothes would betray vanity, carelessness 
neatness, modesty, natural pride, and so on. 

What should constitute being "well dressed"? 
Let the children decide, leading them to see that 
it is not being expensively clothed, but neatly, 
that counts; that clothes need not be fashionable, 
but must be clean; that a person who is well 
dressed is not conspicuous. A person who is 
over-dressed or whose clothes are badly kept and 
disordered, is not well dressed, for over-dressing 
and disorder both make one conspicuous. If 
you do not notice a person's clothes particularly, 
you may be fairly sure that he or she is clothed 
in good taste. 

What type of girl is likely to wear a lot of cheap 
ornaments? Make the girls see that a good- 



190 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

looking girl — a girl whose expression shows a fine 
character, does not need any other ornament; 
in fact, ornament would detract. Generally 
speaking, the girl who loads herself down with 
excessive ornament is either densely ignorant of 
what beauty really is, or else she feels that she is 
ill-looking or that her expression is not good, 
and that by wearing a lot of ornament, she will 
draw attention to the ornament instead of to her 
face. If girls thought that the homelier a girl 
were the more likely she would be to use excessive 
ornament, they would be more willing to lay aside 
the cheap jewelry now so unpleasantly common, 
and the enormous ribbons and ugly methods of 
arranging the hair. It is very effective to show 
large photographs of the same girl illustrating 
over-dressing and proper dressing. The girl 
in the neat and plain dress, with her hair drawn 
simply behind her head reall}^ looks much prettier 
than the same one with her hair standing a foot 
above her head, be-ribboned almost to extinction, 
not to speak of cheap necklaces, ear-rings, gaudy 
pins, and the like. ''Before and after" photo- 
graphs of this kind make very telling points. 

Photographs of boys — the same boy dirty and 
disordered, as well as clean and neat — have their 
effect also. 

It has been said of American girls of fourteen 
that, seen from the distance of thirty yards, it is 



THIRTEEN YEARS 191 

difficult to tell whether they are fourteen or forty! 
This is largely a figure of speech, of course, but 
not entirely so by any means. We find American 
girls of foiurteen dressing as nearly hke their 
mothers as may be, and not only so, but we find, 
particularly among what might be termed the 
''automobile class," that they, and their brothers 
as well, imitate the social activities of their 
parents and grown-up sisters and brothers. Young 
children go to dances of exactly the same charac- 
ter as do their elders, for instance. Social pleasures 
of this type, coming when the child is older, fill 
a very certain need at that time; but when there 
is no novelty in social activities of an innocent 
nature, when the boy and girl of sixteen become 
more or less blase, you will find them at eighteen 
or nineteen searching for more exciting things than 
the usual innocent visiting and dancing, to their 
probable undoing. 

Clothes have their effect on a person, just as 
a person is reflected to a large extent by the clothes 
worn. Girls of fourteen should not be clothed 
Hke debutantes of eighteen. Clothing them so that 
they will appear to be just what they are, girls 
of fourteen, will be good for them morally, and 
will make them look much more attractive after 
all. 

Such ideas as these can be given to girls in 
special talks to them. It is the custom in the 



192 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

schools where the experiment in this moral 
educational plan has been tried, to divide the 
boys and girls frequently into separate halls, and 
give them talks on subjects concerned with their 
particular needs. 

Personal cleanliness does not have to be enlarged 
upon at this age, to any great extent, for by this 
time the children are well aware of the advantages 
of being physically clean. But it is one thing to 
know, and another thing to do. They often need 
a stimulus, and few stimuli are so effective as 
practical illustrations. 

Give the children a short talk on the danger that 
lies in dirt. Ordinary dust is filled with microbes 
of various kinds. Children particularly must 
watch their finger nails to keep them clean, for the 
reason that accumulations of dust under them 
mean accumulations of germs. Uncleaned teeth 
also harbor germs that might become dangerous 
if given opportunity. In this connection co-oper- 
ate with the school physician. Have him prepare 
"cultures" of microbes from the common dust 
of the school room, from the collection of dust 
taken from a child's finger nail, and matter from 
a child's uncleaned teeth. You will be sur- 
prised to see what masses of germs can be culti- 
vated from such sources. If the process is ex- 
plained to the children, and the results shown, 
there will be a new interest in soap and water. 



THIRTEEN YEARS 193 

Character Studies 
There is great good to be gained by making 
fairly close studies of admirable characters. 
Sometimes Uttle biographies of some of these 
characters are to be had, adapted for class work. 
At any rate, the children, either in class or out of 
it, should "read up" a certain character, and then 
discuss his or her qualities in class, so that they 
may conclude why that particular person is con- 
sidered higher and finer than the average. The 
children might keep composition books for this 
character study, and there write brief synopses 
of the discussions, with the results arrived at. It 
might be well after a certain prescribed list of 
characters has been studied, to allow each child 
to present some character of his or her own choice, 
giving the reasons for the selection, and allowing 
the class to criticize the character and the reasons. 
The note-book work might count as ''composi- 
tion." The following list of characters is suggested : 
Columbus, Martin Luther, Joan of Arc, Alfred 
the Great, Franklin and Lincoln. 

Concluding Note 

This concludes the specific outline for the 
thirteen-year-old children. The work for them 
includes more than is written in this chapter. 
The vocational work is supposed to continue 
through the year, once a week if possible. The 



194 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

citizenship work of the previous chapter is for the 
thirteen-year boys as well as the twelve. The 
work in physical training with the talks on that 
subject and concerning the relations between the 
physical, mental, and moral, is continued through 
this year and the next. Added to this is the class- 
room reading which, instead of including the usual 
material — which is without form and void — con- 
sists of fine literature, selected because it is not 
only fine, but interesting and adapted to the 
children reading it. 



CHAPTER VII 
Children of Fourteen Years 

This is an extremely important age. First of 
all, it is the average age of the children in the last 
year of the grammar school, and for a majority it 
is the last year for schoohng of any direct kind. 
It is a very impressionable age and a restless one. 
Impressions and habits made and formed at this 
time are apt to be lasting. 

There are many conditions to remember. 
This is a "restless" age because of the physical 
development, with the accompanying mental 
agitations that are characteristic at this time. 
Of course, as has been said before, there is great 
individual differentiation. A boy of fourteen may 
be pubescent, or post-pubescent. The teacher who 
does not realize these stages of development, 
who does not realize that they come at different 
ages, the teacher who does not reaUze that chil- 
dren in the different stages look upon things dif- 
ferently, and are to be appealed to differently, is 
not likely to make a great success at her teaching. 

There is a vast difference between the pre- 
pubescent and the post-pubescent child of the 

: 13 (195) 



196 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

same age. The pre-pubescent child is Hkely to 
take things as they are without question, is easily 
made to do things with a machine-like regularity, 
is fairly amenable to discipline, and is satisfied 
to a large extent to think and do as the teacher 
desires. With the post-pubescent child comes a 
vast difference. The child begins to question 
everything. The child wants to know ''why," 
and no evasions, however clever, will answer. 
The child no longer Ukes to do things in a machine- 
like, regular way, and no longer submits quietly 
to the usual kind of discipline. The individual 
begins to assert itself. The child becomes sensi- 
tive and proud, is easily hurt and easily driven to 
a stubborn rage. 

To be successful, then, with a class of children 
of this age, you must learn to discriminate, remem- 
bering that the boy who is mature for his years 
is easily led but hard to drive, that he no longer 
takes easily to detailed accuracy in work, but can 
be given interest along broad lines which is just 
as valuable a characteristic. The mature boy is 
not likely to be very neat, but he is hkely to be 
strong, and you can win him by admiring his 
strength, physical and mental. Do not expect 
him to concentrate a great deal. His whole make- 
up is in too unsettled a condition to allow of much 
real concentration for a while. He must learn to 
concentrate, of course, but have him do his work 



FOURTEEN YEARS 197 

because of the interest in that work which you have 
awakened, and he will learn to concentrate — 
something he will never do if you try to force 
him to concentrate as you would his less matiu-e 
brother. 

This is the great "formative " age. At this time 
characters are made or spoiled for life. Here is a 
marvelous opportunity and a portentous respon- 
sibility! 

Habit Forming and Breaking 

The following may be read to the children, or 
the teacher may digest it and give a talk, using 
her own words. The writer has found that 
children of fourteen understand the subject quite 
well. 

There is a little creature living in stagnant water 
called the Paramecium. It is so very small that you 
need a strong microscope to see it. It is long and 
narrow. It swims straight ahead till it hits some- 
thing, and then it glances off at an angle. If it runs 
across some food it will stop till it has eaten all it 
can, then it will go ahead again. It does not go back- 
wards, for it seems that that is a very difficult accom- 
plishment for a Paramecium. 

A naturalist wanted to see if a Paramecium had 
a memory. So he made an extremely narrow tube 
of glass, so narrow that, though a Paramecium could 
swim through it, it could not turn around in it. He 
filled the tube with water and put a Paramecium in 



198 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

one end. The animal promptly swam to the closed 
end and stopped there; he couldn't turn around; he 
was not used to backing; so he just stopped. 

Then the naturalist put the end of the tube near 
a candle flame. It soon became very hot in there 
for the Paramecium. He wanted to get out of there 
mighty badly, I can tell you. But he couldn't turn, 
so, after a great struggling and squirming he — well, 
he just backed right out. It did not come easy. 
It took him some time to get to the point of doing 
it, but finally he did back out, and, I dare say, was 
happy again. 

When the end of the tube was cool, the naturalist 
again put the Paramecium in it. Up it the animal 
went to the end as before, and stopped there. Then 
the candle was brought near. Once more the Parame- 
cium had a bad time of it, but finally backed out. 
This was done again and again, and many times more, 
and after a while it was found that the Paramecium 
was taking less and less time to back out when it got 
too hot. By the time the experiment had been re- 
peated about seventy times he backed out smartly. 

This seemed to show that even so small a creature 
as a Paramecium had memory, and that it could get 
into the habit of doing something new. Only don't 
be Uke a Paramecium, and be scorched seventy times 
before you learn how to back out of something not 
good for you! 

Now the Paramecium is like many microscopic 
creatures in that it is composed of what we call a cell — 
only one. We are composed of milUons of cells: 



FOURTEEN YEARS 199 

every flake of skin, every bit of bone, for instance, is 
composed of unnumbered little cells. But the Parame- 
cium is composed of just one cell, and this cell is very 
complete, for while we have a separate collection to 
make up a stomach, and another collection of cells 
to make up a brain, the one cell of the Paramecium 
has to be brain and stomach and everything. So in 
some ways a Paramecium, because it is composed of 
only one cell, is much like one of our own brain cells. 

It is hard to say anything definite about anything 
so small and hard to study as a brain cell, but each 
seems to be complete in itself, and each brain cell 
can be taught one thing. At first it is hard to get 
the cell to do this thing, but each attempt makes it 
easier. 

Now it seems as though all the brain cells are con- 
nected by little telegraph wires, so that all the cells 
having to do with similar ideas are connected. You 
can prove this very easily. (It might be interesting 
for the teacher, at this point, to stop the talk and 
have each child ready with paper and pencil. Then 
tell them that you are going to say a word, and that 
they are to start with that word and then write other 
words as fast as they can till told to stop. The papers 
can then be collected and a number of the best examples 
read. In these the connection in idea between the 
successive words will be very clear. An example 
would be: river, water, rain, cloud, storm, wind, 
tornado, ruin, hunger, etc. A practical example like 
this will interest the children and show them how 
similar ideas are linked together.) 



200 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

So you see that ideas seem to run in chains, and 
that one leads to another. Sometimes it is very hard 
to make a chain of ideas go the way you want it to. 
It may be because the particular little cells concerned, 
and their telegraph nerves, are not well developed, 
and you may have to make that chain work itself 
time and time again before the ideas run easily in that 
direction. The important thing here is that ideas 
lead to action, so that if we want to do the right thing, 
under certain circumstances, we have to have the 
right ideas first. 

You know how hard it is to get up when you are 
called. If you stop to think how hard it is, why — 
well, you don't get up till you are called again, and 
perhaps it is the sound of a heavy foot coming up the 
stairs that helps you out of bed! But suppose you 
have strongly linked together the idea that it is good 
to get up instantly when called, and that it is easy 
when you do it quickly. You can get such a chain 
of ideas fixed in your mind by a week or so of prac- 
tice. Then it comes easily, and you are up before 
you know it. 

Of course, any one can have a great big alarm clock 
with a six-inch chest expansion that goes off with a 
noise loud enough to wake the dead, so that you are 
up trying to choke it before you are half awake. Of 
course, that will get you up, but that is a weak way 
of doing. It is just as bad as having some other fellow 
doing your fighting for you. You don't get strong 
that way. You have to do it yourself, and the way 
to do it is to work up the right chain of ideas. 



FOURTEEN YEARS 201 

Getting any good habit is just like that. All you 
have to do is work up a good, strong, healthy chain 
of ideas, and practice over it a number of times, and 
the first thing you know, what was hard becomes 
easy. 

The very same thing works when you run up against 
some hard temptation, when you want to do some- 
thing that you have no business to do — something that 
you know to be absolutely wrong. It is particularly 
hard when there is a crowd, and they are all driving 
you. You probably have no chain of ideas ready. 
It comes hard to make one up then and there, and 
each idea seems to come with difficulty. You have to 
make each idea in the chain take its place. You 
think that the thing is wrong; then you think that it 
would be cowardly to do something wrong because 
you hadn't strength enough to stand up for what you 
knew to be right; then you think of the number of 
people who trust you and think you are pretty fine 
and all that is straight and true; and then you think 
of the consequences if you should fail; then suddenly 
your will-power comes to your rescue and off you go, 
and perhaps the crowd yells after you. Crowds always 
yell — and then they admire you behind your back. 

But the next time it happens, you have a defense 
all ready, and it comes easier, till, finally, you turn it 
aside with no effort at all. But you can see in this 
that it is a good thing to have a lot of chains of good 
ideas on hand for emergencies; so cultivate a lot ready 
to help you against the kind of thing you have to fight 
against. 



202 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Sometimes the reverse happens. Suppose you are 
offered a cigarette for the first time. You have already 
heard it is wrong and unhealthful, so you have a Httle 
chain of ideas that helps you out that time, but also 
you allow another little chain to begin, for you have a 
sneaking desire to smoke that cigarette after all. The 
next time that temptation comes, the fight between 
the two chains of ideas becomes much harder, and the 
new one nearly wins. You see the cells connected 
with wanting to smoke are strengthened and the 
telegraph lines connecting them are put in better 
working order. Then the next time comes; first you 
hesitate; then you look up and down the street; then 
you say, ''Sure, Bill, give us a light." And there you 
are, with a well developed chain of ideas in favor of 
smoking! And that is what they call making a habit. 

So you see how good and bad habits are made. The 
process is just the same. And let me tell you, that a 
good habit once formed is just as hard to break as a 
bad one — and you know very well that a bad one is 
mighty hard to break. 

If you have a bad one you want to break, the first 
thing to do is to collect a mass of ideas against the 
thing you should not do. Think over them and get 
them in fighting order. Then when the wrong chain gets 
a start, jump in with your new one as fast as you can. 
Perhaps the new one will be beaten this time; but 
exercise will make it stronger and stronger, and the 
first thing you know it will triiunph over the wrong 
one, and your bad habit will be broken. 

Sometimes we have to have a number of very hard 



FOURTEEN YEARS 203 

knocks before we start a new habit in place of a bad 
old one. The Paramecium was scorched seventy- 
times before it learned when to back out. Don't be 
a Paramecium! 

True Citizenslup 

By this time the children should have a fairly- 
clear idea as to the form of govermnent of their 
city, of their state, and of the United States. 
There should be occasional discussions concerning 
governmental ideas. There is at present keen 
interest in forms of city government. The govern- 
ment by commission is becoming fairly common. 
It would be interesting to have the children 
collect all newspaper cHppings and magazine 
articles on such a subject for a certain length 
of time, and then discuss the matter in class. 

These class discussions may become more 
formal than before. The class may be managed 
as a committee, with the teacher or one of the 
children acting as chairman. In this manner 
they will become familiar with parliamentary 
usage. Such a committee could even discuss 
questions of class discipUne or class order, as 
examples in a small way of large similar questions 
cities have to face. Have them conclude why a 
city must protect itself from disorderly citizens, 
and also why a class should protect itself against 
the disturbing member. 

On one or two occasions, if possible, the class 



204 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

should be taken to see the city governmental 
bodies in action. They should be given an in- 
terest in serious city questions. 

Towards the end of this last grammar-school 
year, they might be led to discuss the word 
citizen, and to develop the meaning of that word 
in its highest sense. 

Ask them to define citizen. First they will 
doubtless say that ''a citizen is one who lives 
in a city." There is more than that! Then, 
they may say that ''a citizen is an inhabitant 
of a city who is a voter, one who takes an intelli- 
gent interest in city matters, and who works for 
the city's best interests." In this manner the 
qualifications of real citizenship can be listed. 

Finally, lead them to see that the personal 
qualities of each member of the community 
must be considered — as the character of a com- 
munity is equal to the sum of its citizens. Well, 
they may say that a true citizen must be honest, 
must be a good workman, must be orderly, and 
so on. Finally they should arrive at the idea 
that the best type of citizen would strive to 
develop for himself the best character and the 
best physique possible. For if the sum of the 
individuals makes the character of a city, and 
makes for its future failure or success, then it 
is necessary for each member to make himself 
as perfect a unit as possible, so that the sum 



FOURTEEN YEARS 205 

may be worthy. In other words, put the livmg 
of strong clean lives as a matter of citizenship — 
of patriotism — as has been suggested before. 

It is a fact in psychology that the strongest 
impulses come through the emotions. It is all 
right to have good ideas, but good ideas alone 
will not accomplish a great deal unless there 
is an emotion behind them. The strongest emo- 
tion making for righteousness has always been 
the religious emotion. We are forbidden to use 
this powerful lever in the schools, but as we 
should have an emotion behind a desire for right 
living, it is suggested that the emotion of pa- 
triotism be utilized in this respect. And surely 
it is the highest form of patriotism that can be 
used in working for the building up of clean, 

strong citizens. 

History 

History can be used to support the foregoing 
lesson. It seems the habit of schools to begin 
with the history of the United States, then take 
up a little about Central Europe, Greece and 
Rome, and, finally, England. There is a vast 
deal of time wasted in teaching history as it is 
usually taught, because most of the time is spent 
on memorizing unessential details, while the 
lesson taught by the history — the most important 
part of it — is let go. It is ten times more im- 
portant for children to know that destruction 



206 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

came upon Rome because the people became 
physically weak and morally corrupt thanJt is 
to study the names of the successive csesars. 
It is much more important for the children to 
realize the meaning in human progress in the 
protest of the American Colonies against taxation 
than it is for them to learn by rote a succession 
of Enghsh kings and the idiosyncrasies of Lord 
North! The greatest lesson that history can 
teach them hes in the development of personal 
liberty and in the fact that moral decadence has 
always resulted in national downfall. 

Have the children study, either in selected 
text-books placed at their disposal, or in such 
works as they can find in libraries, the story of 
the successive Aryan invasions. 

First we have the ancestors of the Hindus, who 
came from the Aryan country and conquered India, 
and who began to weaken as soon as they became 
wealthy. The formation of the Persian Empire comes 
next, ending in its conquest by the Greeks, who made 
the third party of invaders. The Greeks, with their 
interest in an all-romid development reached a won- 
derful pinnacle of mental and physical development; 
but their prosperity was too much for them, and they 
went down before the clean, sober Roman, who con- 
quered the known world. 

Then came enormous wealth to Rome. The 
Romans fought no more; they paid others to fight 



FOURTEEN YEARS 207 

for them. They lost their physical stamina, and then 
they lost their moral stamina. Rome, too, became 
corrupt, and went down before a clean strong race 
from the North, the next Aryan invasion! 

And so it has gone. A race has achieved greatness 
through moral and physical strength, and when these 
have become weakened through too much prosperity, 
that race has fallen before a newer and cleaner one. If 
we are to stand where others have fallen, it is neces- 
sary for us to fight the corrupting influences of too 
much wealth. Here is another lesson on high patriot- 
ism, Be strong and clean for the sake of your country! 

Indiiidual and Public Rights 

The object of this lesson is to show that a man's 
action, or the action of a company of men, or 
of a corporation, may affect others than those 
who do the act. The action of a trolley com- 
pany or of its men will nearly always affect the 
traveling public, which must be considered there- 
fore. The action of a grocer may affect his cus- 
tomers. The quality of the work of a brick- 
layer may affect the safety of passers-by. Chil- 
dren, and many grown-ups, do not seem to realize 
this serious truth. 

Give this problem to the children for discussion, 
which may be an open class argument or a written 
one. An open discussion followed by a written 
exposition makes a good exercise. 



208 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Suppose there is a grocer who sells a poor grade of 
butter to his customers. The customers do not realize 
that the butter is bad because it has been put into 
such a condition that its taste, appearance, and odor 
are like those of good butter. A city official inspects 
that man's goods and arrests him for selling bad 
butter. The grocer declares that what he sells is his 
business and his customers'. What right has the city 
to interfere? 

Suppose this grocer sold meats that he did not keep 
in a clean place. Suppose he were fined for selling 
meat that had been kept in an imsanitary place. 
Suppose he said that it was his affair how he kept his 
store and that his customers saw how things were, and 
if they were satisfied, why whould the city interfere? 
(The answer is, of course, that a city must protect the 
health of its people.) 

Disease might spread widely from one unsanitary 
butcher shop. Perhaps the customers themselves 
might be willing to run the risk, in which case the 
great majority of the people would have to protect 
those customers from contamination so as to protect 
themselves. People are often forbidden to enter a 
quarantined house. They might be wilHng to run the 
risk of getting the disease themselves; yet they might 
not only get it themselves, but spread it further in the 
city. So, for the good of the public, that man who 
would enter a house containing some contagious dis- 
ease must be kept from doing so. And, for the same 
reason, that is, for the general good, a store must be 
kept sanitary, and food sold must be pure. 



FOURTEEN YEAUS 209 

Suppose a trolley company decides to add an extra 
hour a day to the time of its men. Suppose the men 
object, and decide to strike rather than even talk it 
over, and suppose the company persists in its decision 
without consenting to talk it over. Suppose, again, 
that the men of a trolley company, despite the fact 
that they are receiving a just wage, decide to demand 
an increase, and, upon refusal, decide to strike. Here 
is a great question. Who is to be considered besides 
the men and the company? Who else is affected by a 
strike besides the employers and employees? Bring 
out the fact that the trolley is a public necessity, that 
the public is to be considered first of all, that public 
convenience and necessity should be of more concern 
than the demands of either company or men, that the 
public has final rights in the case. For this reason the 
public should see to it that no strike occurs, and that 
arbitration takes its place, a public arbitration. No 
unfair strike or unfair company measure can succeed 
against general public disapproval. 

Similarly have the children discuss why it is 
proper for a city to require that buildings be 
inspected, from their masonry to their electric 
wiring; why it is proper for a city to quarantine 
a case of contagious disease and make restaurants, 
stores, and hotels follow certain laws of sanita- 
tion. Bring out the idea that a community must 
be managed for the good of the greatest number, 
and that individual wishes, if wrong, must give 
way to the wishes of the majority. 



210 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

The other idea to be brought out is that the 
employers and the employees in public-service 
corporations, like trolley companies, railroads, 
and the like, must consider the wishes of the 
public as well as their own desires, and that the 
first have no right to cause strikes by unfair regu- 
lations and measures concerning their men any 
more than the latter have to strike unless there 
is a very serious matter at stake, and even then 
only as the last resort. An open appeal to the 
public will often accomplish more than a dis- 
orderly strike, however necessary the strike may 
be at times. 

These ideas may seem a little difficult to make 
clear, or to have the children make clear for them- 
selves; but the writer knows by experience that 
children of fourteen can understand the matter 
very well, and it is very necessary that they 
should discuss such things at this time, for it is 
the last year in school for many of them. 

Ideals 

r- Most children of fourteen have an ideal type 
which they think they would like to resemble. 
Often this ideal is not a very high one. Boys 
frequently admire prize-fighters before all others, 
for instance, and this is only natural, after all. 
Boys of fourteen are at an aggressive, intensely 
masculine age, and the idea of a combat appeals 



FOURTEEN YEARS 211 

to them. They are strong for adventure. They 
will devour the most impossible adventurous fic- 
tion without question, knowing inside their 
minds that it is all untrue and impossible stuff, 
but wanting to believe it with all their might. 
Therefore you must not expect boys of this age 
to have delicate and spirituelle ideals. They are 
likely to be strong and crude ones, and they 
should be so, if the boy is a real one. 

Yet boys can be led to have for ideals ad- 
venturous heroes and battlers who are ideal in 
other and higher ways. 

By this time, if this system has been carried 
out completely, the children should not feel 
particularly self-conscious when they enter dis- 
cussions or write their opinions. The average 
school child of fourteen, when asked to write 
a description of his or her ideal, will then and 
there make up an ideal that he or she thinks will 
please the teacher. 

Teachers are apt to be far too critical. Their 
function is not to criticize so much as to lead 
and to aid. This critical attitude is a natural 
product of that part of our educational systems 
which requires children to prepare lessons at 
home and recite upon them next day under the 
criticism of the teacher. It is only too common 
and well-pointed an opinion that many parents 
do the actual teaching. And woe betide the 

14 



212 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

children if their parents do not teach them 
well! 

One result of this system of moral education 
should be the development of a feeling of friend- 
ship and co-operation between teacher and pupil. 
There must be such a feehng of friendship and 
confidence or this lesson will fail, for the average 
child will be quite well aware that his or her 
ideal will not be such as might be considered 
best from the standpoint of an adult and a teacher 
at that. With the feeling as it should be, how- 
ever, the children are likely to write a description 
fairly close to their ideal, though exact description 
of so evasive a matter could not be expected — even 
of humans much older than school children! 
But the attempt to describe the ideal on paper 
will cause the child to consider it more carefully. 
Much unworthy glamor fades upon analysis. 

A child psychologist of the writer's acquaint- 
ance once said that the way to cure a small boy 
of ''calf love" was to compel him to write a care- 
ful and comprehensive description of the object 
of his adoration — and usually the adoration 
would fade like snow before the sun! It is the 
old matter of analyzing beautiful poetry. The 
analysis is likely to cause a certain disHke for 
that particular poem in particular and all poetry 
in general. So while such analysis may be bad 
for a child's growing taste for literature, it may 



FOURTEEN YEARS 213 

be just the thing for the examining of a child's 
ideal. If the ideal is unworthy or false, the 
child will see the weak points as soon as the 
ideal is described on paper. 

When these papers are looked over by the 
teacher, the critical attitude should be avoided 
scrupulously. Children are exceedingly sensitive 
concerning their fancies, and different kinds of 
ideals should be brought forward with all dehcacy, 
allowing the class to discuss them without letting 
any one know their authors. 

If a child's ideal is a good one, it will stand 
this test; if not, it will be shaken or destroyed. 
This lesson should be followed by several taking 
up two or three ideal characters, in the manner 
previously described. Lead the boys to develop 
strong and knightly ideals and the girls to develop 
others characteristically feminine. 

Body, Mind and Soul 

There are two objects in this lesson. One is to 
show the relationship between the physical, men- 
tal, and moral, and another is to make strong the 
lesson that a real citizen should be as strong in 
every way as possible, for the strength and 
prosperity of a country are equal to the sum of 
the strength and prosperity of all the individual 
citizens. 

Ask the children to give examples of cases 



214 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

where the physical condition will affect the men- 
tal ability. The following points are likely to be 
brought out: that the mind does not work well 
when there is physical pain, when the body is 
fatigued, immediately after a large meal, when 
the body is affected by some drug, and so on. 
It is easy to cause children to see that there is a 
direct relation between the physical condition and 
the working of the brain. Perhaps some will 
tell how improving the physical condition will 
improve the mental ability. The physical-train- 
ing program as herein described should make 
that clear. 

Ask the children to give examples of cases 
where physical conditions will affect one's behav- 
ior. They may say, for instance, that when one 
is very tired one is apt to be cross. Crossness 
may also come when one is in pain, when the 
eyes are out of order, or the digestion, or when 
one has a severe head-cold. The children will 
soon see that physical condition has some connec- 
tion with the moral side of one's nature. 

Ask the children to give examples that will 
show how one's behavior will affect one's mind. 
Show that one cannot do good mental work when 
very angry, or when in fear, or when "excited." 

By this time it should be clear to the class that 
the body, the mind, and the ''soul" have a close 
inter-relation. Ask them which one has the 



FOURTEEN YEARS 215 

quickest effect on the others. They will answer, 
no doubt, that the body has the quickest effect on 
the other two. The children can now see very 
clearly the point that any abuse of the body is 
very likely to affect the mind and the character. 

The physical work by this time should have 
given the children some very definite ideas as to 
the harmfulness of tea, coffee, and tobacco. But 
at fourteen they are old enough to appreciate 
statistics, and even to look up some on their own 
account. 

A child might copy the following tables on the 
board for the others to copy into a note-book in 
which such notes may be kept. It would not be 
out of place to have them in the "citizenship" 
note-book, for it is one of our points that the best 
type of citizen will avoid things that will make 
him or her less efficient. 

The following table is composed of statistics 
obtained from 400 private-school boys. It shows 
a relation between the school-marks and smoking, 
by comparing the yearly report averages of 
smokers and non-smokers of ages from 12 to 17 
inclusive. 

Age 12 13 14 15 16 17 

Average of non-smokers .... 83 90 89 84 87 85 
Average of smokers 73 75 73 75 75 68 

A public grammar school was studied and the 



216 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

ages of the boys in every class were taken. It 
was found that with only two exceptions all the 
boys who were a year, and all those who were 
two years older than the average of the class were 
smokers, and that with only four exceptions all 
the boys who were a year or two years below the 
average age were non-smokers. 

In the same school the children who had 
"skipped" a grade or half -grade were studied. 
Only five per cent, of the boys who "skipped" 
had ever smoked. 

In the same pubhc school the health records of 
all the boys were studied, and it was found that 
all the boys who had had nervous disorders were 
smokers, and that 71 per cent, of those who had 
had digestive troubles were smokers. It was also 
found that a considerable majority of the boys 
who had had typhoid-pneumonia, appendicitis, 
diphtheria, and eye-trouble were smokers or had 
been smokers. 

In another public school the physical measure- 
ments of the boys were taken at the beginning 
and at the end of the school year. It was found 
that the non-smokers gained 30 per cent, more in 
height and 16 per cent, more in chest expansion 
than did the smokers. That is, for every three 
Inches a smoker grew, a non-smoker grew nearly 
four. In a few years this would make quite a 
difference! 



FOURTEEN YEARS 217 

All the statistics given were obtained by the 
writer. The following figures were found in 
studying the history of the class of '91 of Am- 
herst College: 

The non-smokers increased in weight 24 per 
cent, more than did the smokers; they increased 
37 per cent, more in height, and 75 per cent. (!) 
more in lung capacity.* 

The facts here given should prove to the boys 
that smoking affects one both physically and 
mentally, and so must also affect one morally. 

Have the children look up, in physiologies or 
elsewhere, articles on the physical effects of nico- 
tine, as well as their state and city laws con- 
cerning juvenile smoking. 

The following statistics were obtained in a 
pubHc school by the writer. It was asked how 
many children drank coffee each day, and how 
many cups each time. The results for the chil- 
dren of eleven and twelve years were as follows: 

Considering weight and height: 

Of the children 11 years old, the coffee- 
drinkers averaged 3 pounds lighter and Ij 
inches shorter. 

Of the children 12 years old, the coffee- 
drinkers averaged d| pounds lighter and | 
an inch shorter. 



* See Seaver's Anthropometry and Physical Examination, published, New 
Haven, 1905 (pp. 183, 184). 



218 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Considering averages of lessons and conduct: 

The children who drank no coffee averaged 

73.5 in lessons and 75.6 in conduct. 

The children who drank one cup of coffee per 

day averaged 70 in lessons and 72.9 in conduct. 
The children who drank 3 or more cups per 

day averaged 67 in lessons and 69^ in conduct. 

So we can see from the facts that coffee seems 
to affect children not only physically, but men- 
tally, and according to conduct averages, morally. 

Few schools are without lessons on the results 
of using alcoholics. Have the children look up 
and report statistics concerning the results of 
using alcohol, results not only affecting the user, 
but affecting his family and his state. 

If children can see that drinking and smoking 
make people less efficient in every way, and also 
lower the total strength and prosperity of their 
communities, and actually cost their communities 
large sums of money anmially, they can see why 
abstinence is necessary for good citizenship. 

Domestic Science 

By this time, if the foregoing outline has been 
carried out, the girls of fourteen will have had the 
advantage of many lessons valuable for future 
mothers. A ''housekeeping center" has been 
described. By all means the school should possess 



o 




FOURTEEN YEARS 219 

a model ''home." It may be a little dwelling near 
the school- — a dwelling such as a majority of the 
girls come from, or a flat, if they come from flats. 
As a last resort, perhaps a room or two, two being 
much better than one, can be had in the school 
itself, one room being a typical kitchen and the 
other a bedroom. 

Domestic science, to some extent, is taught in 
the usual girls' high school; a Httle cooking and 
sewing get into the upper grades of the grammar 
schools. In a few instances sewing is given even 
in the primary grades. The most important 
topic in domestic science, however, the care of 
infants, is given in the rarest instances, and only 
in the high school. But the girls who need it 
most are in the upper primary grades, and in the 
lower granamar ones. They are going to work 
in a year or two, in factories or behind counters, 
and they need this kind of work, vitally. 

Therefore, by all means, the grammar schools 
should include a course in the care of infants, a 
practical course, illustrated by means of real 
infants. In the little housekeeping center of the 
Thomas Wood (primary) school of Philadelphia, 
it was found that mothers in the neighborhood 
were glad to bring their babies to the center 
frequently, for the expert advice they could obtain 
there. On the days set apart for this work there 
were rarely less than eight infants on hand, and 



220 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

often more, and the girls of the school, twelve, 
thirteen, and fourteen years of age, learned how 
to care for infants with real ones instead of plaster 
dolls. 

All this provided a great opportunity for val- 
uable talks concerning the health of infants and 
their mothers. It enabled the girls to see the 
home, as an institution, in a broader and better 
light. If sex hygiene is to be taught to girls, 
it had better be under such circumstances, in a 
"home" atmosphere, and, until the girl is fifteen, 
more or less indirectly, as has been described. 

Manners 

This should be a repetition of the previous 
lesson in manners. It might be well to have a 
table set in the class room and have different 
members of the class demonstrate good table 
manners under actual circumstances. The man- 
ners of groups of boys and girls of fourteen and 
older, in pubUc conveyances and in the streets, 
even when the children are from so-called good 
famihes, is generally not all that could be desired. 
There is likely to be loud talking and laughing 
among the girls, horse-play among the boys, and 
a general disregard for the comfort and feelings 
of others who happen to be present. Ask the 
children to describe what would be considered 
bad manners under various conditions. 



FOURTEEN YEARS 221 

Happiness Through Doing 

Without warning, give all the children a slip 
of paper and have them write as quickly as possible 
what it is that gives them the greatest enjoyment, 
what it is they like best to have or to do. They 
should be allowed a very short time for this writing. 
Then the papers should be collected, and nothing 
more said about them at that time. They should 
be gone over and the classes of subjects listed. 
A number will say that they Uke most to have 
certain things, sometimes money, but generally 
a very great majority will say that they like 
doing something more than anything else. 

When these figures are all listed, the subject of 
happiness can be taken up. Ask the children 
if they can tell what brings happiness. Now, when 
all the class is at it, and the natural competition 
arises, children are quite as likely to say having as 
doing. Then give them the results of their writing, 
and show that putting together what most of 
them enjoyed it was found that they enjoyed 
doing something more than having something. 

Ask the children to tell what has happened when 
they have obtained something that they had 
wanted very badly. You can get them to acknowl- 
edge that there was great happiness as soon as the 
desired thing was obtained, and that the next 
day the pleasure, though there, was not quite so 
strong, and that the next day it was less, until. 



222 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

after a while, interest in the thing was ahnost 
forgotten because of something else that was 
wanted badly. 

In other words, the children can be led to see 
that the struggle to obtain the thing, and the 
anticipation of having it, brought as much, if 
not more, pleasure than the actual having. 

Ask the children to imagine and describe their 
feelings if they were put in a place where every 
good thing was to be had by putting forth the 
hand, and where there was nothing to do. After 
a little thinking they are hkely to decide that 
they would rather have fewer things and be able 
to do something. 

Ask them to criticize the statement that "if 
all the world's goods were parceled equally among 
all the people, all would be happy." 

Ask them which they appreciate most, some- 
thing they have worked hard for, for a long time, 
or something equally valuable that was given 
them. 

Ask them why it is they appreciate more 
something they have worked for than something 
which was given them. Lead them to see that 
it is because they have given a Tpart of themselves 
for the thing they value — effort, physical, mental, 
or even moral. It is a part of themselves, hence 
they value it above something that has come 
without thought or effort. 



FOURTEEN YEARS 223 

Have the children write a composition on 
Happiness, teUing what it is that makes men 
most happy, and why. 

Concluding Note 

This concludes the work for the fom'teen-year- 
old children. It is to be remembered that in this 
year are to be continued the physical-measure- 
ment and training program, the vocational-guid- 
ance work, the citizenship work, and the domestic- 
science plan as described in previous lessons; 
not only these, but certain other previous les- 
sons will lose nothing by repetition to these 
older children. 

It is also to be remembered that what has been 
said about books and reading is particularly 
applicable to children of this age; for it is often 
at fourteen that a great interest in readicg arises 
which, if carefully directed, can be of immense 
benefit. 



CHAPTER VIII 
A Reading List 

This does not pretend to be a complete list 
of books appropriate for children of different 
ages. It purports merely to be a suggestive out- 
line, indicating the types of books which can be 
understood and enjoyed by children at different 
stages of development, and which, at the same 
time, will aid in giving them an acquaintance 
with good Enghsh, besides developing a fund of 
high ideas if not ideals. 

The topic of reading and its value has been 
considered elsewhere, but certain points are 
worthy of particular emphasis. The object of 
giving children good reading is to develop in 
their minds a practical working knowledge of 
correct English language, to give them a love 
for the best that is to be found in books, thus 
indirectly working for character-making through 
the development of ideas. 

We make a fatal mistake in thinking that 
children are going to be taught to speak and 
write correctly by means of grammatical rules. 
I doubt much if the best English writers could 

(224) 



A READING LIST 225 

parse a sentence correctly — ^unless they had 
studied Latin and applied Latin methods of 
parsing to the particular sentence. Children in 
slum schools learn a good many things about 
grammar. They are able, after a while, to name 
all the parts of speech, to point them out, and 
to distinguish participial phrases, complex-com- 
pound sentences, and the like. And as soon as 
they are out of school they use their "ain't got's," 
''hasn't done it's," 'Hhat there's," and the like, 
just as though such a thing as grammar never 
existed. They use the language that makes the 
greatest impression on them — the language of 
their home and neighborhood — and no filKng 
them with grammatical complexities will help 
them one iota. 

Furthermore, we have a way of having our 
school children pick their reading matter to 
pieces. We try to make them critical. We 
want them to notice every clever technicality, to 
look up every allusion, and, as has been said, 
take each masterpiece apart, fragment by frag- 
ment, Hmb by limb, after the fashion of the 
coroner's inquest, so that it is no wonder that 
most children loathe their EngHsh work, and 
take to nickel novels and cheap children's serials 
with avidity. For the fact is that children enjoy 
interesting reading. 

Now there are a vast number of books, inter- 



226 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

esting to children, which, at the same time, are 
very fine in language and thought. But these 
latter, which the children might read with pleas- 
ure and profit, we make unpleasant and unprofit- 
able by means of horrible technical dissections 
and morbid surgical examinations, till very many 
children look upon the term "good literature" 
as the name of a dry, uninteresting type of book, 
to be avoided whenever possible. 

When children enjoy their reading, the very 
language they read makes its impression. Chil- 
dren imitate what they admire and what they 
practice. Several years of reading interesting 
books of a high grade will accomplish wonders, 
not only in cultivating a knowledge of good 
English, to be spoken and written, but also in 
developing a love for the finer things in books 
and in hfe. 

Therefore, when you have class reading, do 
what you can to make it interesting. Let syntax 
go by the board. It is not natural for children 
to do well with anything technical until they 
are over fourteen years of age. Do not have 
long gaps between the readings of interesting 
books. It is infinitely better to spend twenty 
minutes a day in reading an interesting story 
than to put in forty minutes every other day. Bet- 
ter still, let the children who enjoy the story, 
take the book home and finish as soon as they 



A READING LIST 227 

like. If the class reads the year's Hst of books 
long before the year is over, thank Heaven — and 
provide more books! 

The following list arranges books according 
to the age of the readers. This is done advisedly. 
It has been said before that there is a great in- 
dividual differentiation in children. Some chil- 
dren at twelve are as mature mentally and phys- 
ically as some at foiu-teen, and some at twelve 
may be physically and mentally eleven or ten. 
The ideal class is one where children are arranged 
according to physiological age and not chrono- 
logical. But it is not likely that such divisions 
will be made in our schools. Under present con- 
ditions it would be an extremely difficult matter 
to arrange. The best we can do, then, in arrang- 
ing work for children, is to consider averages, 
so that the books mentioned are suitable for 
children whose characteristics are like those of 
the average of certain ages. 

Six and Seven Years 
There are many little stories which will be enjoyed 
by children of this age, and with these schools are well 
supplied. Andersen's and Grimm's Tales can be be- 
gim at this time, and used more extensively in the two 
years following. 

Eight and Nine Years 
Grimm's and Andersen's Tales 
Lord Fauntleroy Burnett 



■<R 



228 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Sarah Crewe Burnett 

Rip Van Winkle Irving 

Black Beauty Sewall 

Reynard the Fox Edited by Jacobs, 

A. L. Burt Co. 
Ten Years 
The Prince and the Pauper .... Mark Twain 
Arabian Nights 

King of the Golden River Ruskin 

Little Men Alcott 

Little Women Alcott 

Dory Mates Munro 

Wonder Book Hawthorne 

Eleven Years 

The Jungle Books Kipling 

Wild Animals I Have Known . . . Seton 

Eight Cousins Alcott 

Robinson Crusoe De Foe 

Twelve Years 

Christmas Carol Dickens 

Deerslayer Cooper 

Pathfinder Cooper 

Last of the Mohicans Cooper 

The Pilot Cooper 

Treasure Island Stevenson 

Twenty Thousand Leagues Un- 
der the Sea Verne 

Ivanhoe Scott 

Talisman Scott 

Lady of the Lake Scott 

American Boys' Handy Book . . . Beard 



A READING LIST 229 

Thirteen Years 

Captains Courageous Kipling 

Two Little Savages Seton 

Tom Brown's School Days Hughes 

White Fang London 

Men of Iron Pyle 

Rime of the Ancient Mariner Coleridge 

Vision of Sir Launfal Lowell 

Evangeline Longfellow 

Lady of the Lake Scott 

Lays of Ancient Rome Macaulay 

Fourteen Years 

Merchant of Venice Shakespeare 

Julius Caesar Shakespeare 

Kidnapped Stevenson 

Poe's Tales 

Two Years Before the Mast Dana 

Idylls of the King Tennyson 

Homer's Odyssey 

Le Mort D' Arthur Malory 

Apology and Crito Plato (Jowett's 

translation) 
Histories of Greece and Rome — (There are many 
to choose from. Select those that read like 
stories and avoid long and dry explanations). 
Froissart's Chronicles 

Life of the Spider Fabre 

History of Peru .Prescott 

Walden. Thoreau (for na- 
ture lovers) 



230 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Fifteen Years 

David Balfour Stevenson 

Les Miserables (selected narra- 
tive) Hugo 

The Prince of India Wallace 

Ben Hur Wallace 

David Copperfield Dickens 

Plutarch's Lives 

Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers 

Homer's Ihad (Bryant's translation) 

Lorna Doone Blackmore 

Henry Esmond Thackeray 

Scottish Chiefs Porter 

Tale of Two Cities Dickens 

The Crisis Churchill 

The Cloister and the Hearth .... Reade 

Lincoln's Speeches 

Pilgrim's Progress Bunyan 

A word of caution should be given. Children 
of a certain age differ greatly according to local- 
ity and environment, the latter including, of 
course, the home. So that, whereas the books 
assigned to a certain age would be appropriate 
for the children of one type or class, they would 
be a little "too much" for children of another 
type. This, to be sure, must be left to the in- 
dividual judgment of each school. It might 
be said that this list was obtained by means of 
a questionnaire given a large number of children, 
and by actual trial. 



CHAPTER IX 
The Health of the Child 

We have abeady discussed, to some extent, 
the relation between the physical health of the 
child, and his mental and moral condition. The 
relation is so close that one cannot be considered 
without the other. When physical conditions 
are not what they should be, then moral condi- 
tions are not what they should be. The school 
should see to it that nothing connected with the 
school will create or encourage an unhealthy 
physical condition, and, not only so, but the 
school should do its full share — and more — ^in 
helping to improve bad physical conditions. 

As to the school itself. It is not necessary, 
these days, to say much concerning ventilation 
and lighting. New schools are being built all 
over the country that are above reproach. The 
worst seen by the writer have been private schools, 
and the reason for this is, doubtless, that there 
is an official inspection for pubhc schools. Pri- 
vate schools can have as bad Kghting and venti- 
lation as they please, since it is left to the parents 
to see that all is as it should be — and the parents 

(231) 



232 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

of private-school children take little active in- 
terest in such matters. I beUeve thoroughly 
that there should be a compulsory inspection of 
private schools, with authority to compel the 
remedying of unsanitary conditions. If aU the 
private schools of the country were suddenly 
inspected and the report pubHshed, there would 
be a great and sudden improvement in conditions. 
Some private schools, to be sure, are all that they 
should be, but many are no better than they have 
to be — and that means pretty bad. 

The schools should see to it that the children 
are seated properly. The desks and seats should 
be adjusted to the size of their occupants at 
least once a year, if not twice. Many bad phys- 
ical effects can be attributed to bad seating. 
It is our commonest fault. 

The matter of a school lunch requires careful 
consideration. Where children receive good and 
sufficient meals at home, the question is not a 
serious one. But in some districts children come 
to school not only improperly fed but very often 
underfed. In Philadelphia it has been found 
that such conditions can be aided materially by 
having school lunches and dinners. In the 
former, single dishes may be had for a penny, 
and a dinner costs three cents. The menu is 
selected with the greatest care and the effect 
of these meals upon the physical and mental 



THE HEALTH OF THE CHILD 233 

condition of the children has been marked. Nor 
are these cheap meals expensive to provide. It 
has been foimd that the pennies paid by the 
children pay for the raw materials of the meals, 
so that all that remains is the expense of the 
equipment and the service, which is small, con- 
sidering its value. Though this is a new idea 
in this country, it is anything but new abroad, 
particularly in England. 

There should be medical and physical exami- 
nations of all the children at least once a year. 
Particularly should their eyes, ears, and hearts be 
examined, as well as their throats. Much back- 
wardness and bad behavior can be traced directly 
to bad eyes, bad hearing, bad teeth, or adenoids. 

There should be bathing faciUties in pubhc 
schools. The writer saw, in St. Louis, a splendid 
school where twice a week each class went to 
the shower-baths, the school providing soap and 
towels. It was the cleanest school the writer 
has ever visited, with no exceptions, and it was 
right in the middle of what would be called a 
''poor" district. 

Play means a great deal when the physical, 
mental, and moral development of children are 
considered. The spread of the playground move- 
ment shows clearly how well this fact is being 
reahzed. A great deal of time with younger 
children, and even a considerable amount with 



234 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

the older ones, should be devoted to play. Here 
again the work must be adapted to the psycho- 
logical age of the children. Children under 
thirteen do not take kindly to mechanical plays. 
Class drills do not appeal to them at all, or very 
little, and the younger the children the weaker is 
the appeal. And the exercise must appeal or 
it is nearly, if not quite, valueless. 

So for the younger children have competitive 
games in which individuals play for themselves 
against their fellows. This utihzes the com- 
petitive individualistic spirit natural to younger 
children. For this reason ''team" games are 
unsuitable for them, though they can be used 
at twelve years, and are the most favored at 
fourteen and fifteen. 

A valuable play is dancing. As G. Stanley 
Hall says, dancing has fallen upon evil days. 
The most modern dances are almost purely sen- 
sual, in a very bad sense, and have Uttle of grace 
or beauty. Rhythm is left, but it is connected 
with a very simple series of movements, so that 
the dance itself has little attraction, the pleasure, 
such as it is, being almost entirely sexual. 

And yet the dance, in its better form, is very 
valuable. The older group dances and the folk 
dances, and even the spontaneous ones which 
street children invent under the stimulus of the 
street organ, would be factors in the development 




Desk too High — A Common Condition Favorable to 
Curvature of the Spine 



THE HEALTH OF THE CHILD 235 

of a child of no little value. Says President Hall: 
''Instead of the former vast repertory of fine 
and varied dances, replete with individual and 
varied meanings and associations, we have in 
the dance of the modem ball room only a degen- 
erate relict, with at best only insignificant cultural 
value, and too often stained with bad associa- 
tions. This is most unfortunate for youth, and 
for their sake a work of rescue and revival is 
greatly needed, for it is, perhaps, not even except- 
ing music, the completest language of the emotions 
and can be made one of the best schools for senti- 
ment and even will, inoculating good states of 
mind, and exorcising bad ones as few other 
agencies have power to do."* 

The schools, here and there, are beginning to 
obtain this view of dancing, and it may be that, 
before long, the influence of the beautiful dances 
taught in the schools may show itself in the 
ordinary dance halls, and even, after a time, 
it is to be hoped, in the ball room. 

As to sports and games in which teams play 
against teams, either within the school or against 
teams from other schools, much might be writ- 
ten. The development of team work is invaluable. 
A boy comes to learn that a team is successful 
only as each member sinks his individuality in 
the team, and plays for the good of the team 

* Adolescence, Vol. I, p. 212. 



236 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

instead of for his personal glory. Baseball is 
perhaps the best all-around team game for boys, 
but even football has its values imder certain 
conditions. The elements of danger are being 
more and more eliminated, and most accidents 
of a serious nature seem to occur when younger 
boys play with or against older ones. The 
younger boy may be quite as large or even larger 
than the older ones, but his frame is not so firmly 
knit, and a blow that may not injure the older 
boy may injure the younger one for life. So if 
football is played, it should be seen to that mem- 
bers of a team should be of nearly the same 
grade of physical development and age, and, not 
only so, but they should play only against teams 
of their own age and physical status. This may 
be a little difficult to arrange, but it is worth the 
trouble. Furthermore, no boy should be allowed 
to play on a team unless he has had a very care- 
ful physical examination. 

Track sports have a great vogue among school 
boys, and particularly among the boys of private 
schools, yet a great deal of caution must be used 
in this kind of play. Long runs are often dan- 
gerous. The street "marathon," now so very 
common, in which boys as young as fourteen or 
thirteen take part, is extremely dangerous and 
should be abohshed. The advice in this kind 
of exercise, as well as for all kinds, is not too 



THE HEALTH OF THE CHILD 237 

much, and an expert, and not the boys, should 
decide what constitutes too much. 

Basket ball is one of the good games that 
also requires careful oversight, for it requires 
and uses up a great deal of strength and endur- 
ance. A boy under fifteen or even under seven- 
teen should have his playing time strictly hmited 
to a few minutes. Yet I have known groups of 
boys to be allowed to play this very violent 
game all afternoon, to their utter and complete 
exhaustion, and often to their permanent injury. 
Unfortunately too few athletic "coaches" have 
any knowledge of physical training or of the 
developmental problems of growing boys, so that 
they often urge unfit boys into teams "for the 
honor of the school" (which really means for the 
advertisement of the school) and, not only so, 
are often likely to drive the youngsters far 
beyond their strength and endurance. They 
must have victories at all costs. Of the idea of 
playing a game for the pure sport of it they have 
no conception at all. 

Of the value of music in a school, and of fine 
pictures, Httle need be said, for only in back- 
country districts are school authorities unaware 
of the importance of these two mfluences. Sing- 
ing is becoming more and more of a factor in 
our schools, and it means much for the better 
moral development of the children. 



238 CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT 

Finally, let us see to it that all mental and 
moral defectives are discovered and weeded out 
of the normal classes. Real defectives can be 
improved much by scientific training, but never 
cured, and should be placed in institutions where 
they will not only receive this training under the 
best of conditions, but where they will be hap- 
pier than elsewhere. 

In some places these children are taken from 
the regular grades, but the fatal mistake is made 
of placing them in special classes — the moral 
defectives with the mental defectives, to the 
undoing of the latter. Often, too, these classes 
are kept in the same building with the normal 
classes, and sometimes in makeshift buildings of 
wretched character. They should be segregated 
as soon as discovered. 

The teacher is usually able to tell, to some 
extent, when a child is not acting or learning 
normally. She can sometimes discover the 
mental defective, but the moral defective is more 
difficult to discover, and is often only found 
after much damage has been done. 

Much care needs to be taken, however, for 
what seems to be a mental or moral defective 
may be merely a case where there is a constant 
physical irritation of some kind, such as is caused 
by eye-strain. Troublesome and backward chil- 
dren should be given a careful medical and mental 



THE HEALTH OF THE CHILD 239 

examination and their true status discovered. 
They can then be treated accordingly. 

Of late there has been a spreading of the so- 
called "Binet mental tests." These are valuable 
as a step in the right direction, but have the 
fault that many of them are more pedagogical 
than mental. In no case should the mental 
examination be left in the hands of the regular 
grade teacher. Decision in such cases requires 
expert and experienced judgment, the result of 
special training, and much harm may be done 
by giving credit to judgments given by untramed 
teachers. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adolescence. G. Stanley Hall. D. Appleton & Co. 

Mind in the Making. Edgar J. Swift. Chas. Scrib- 
ner's Sons. 

We and Our Children. Woods Hutchison, M.D. 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 

Helping School Children. Elsa Dennison. Harper 
& Bros. (A valuable work giving a great amount 
of useful information concerning the many prob- 
lems which must be faced by schools.) 

Winning the Boy. Lilburn Merrill. Fleming H. 
Revell Co. (Studies of some characteristics of 
"street boys" and methods of appeal.) 

The Lowry Books. E. B. Lowry, M.D. Forbes & Co., 
Chicago. (These discuss sanely different phases 
of the sex-hygiene subject and would be useful 
to teachers who have to consider this subject.) 

The Conservation of the Child. Arthur Holmes. J. 
B. Lippincott Co. (An excellent study of back- 
ward children and their treatment.) 

Principles of Character Making. Arthur Holmes. J. 
B. Lippincott Co. (An extremely valuable work.) 

Amusements of Worcester School Children. Cos- 
grove. Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 6, p. 332. 

Education by Plays and Games. G. E. Johnson. 
Ginn & Co. 

Psychological, Pedagogical, and Rehgious Aspects of 
Group Games. Luther GuUck, M.D. Pedago- 
gical Seminary, Vol. 1, p. 135. 
(240) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 241 

The Moral Education of School Children. C. K. Tay- 
lor. C. K. & H. B. Taylor, Chestnut Hill, Pa. 
(A statement of the problem and the conditions 
governing its solution.) 

Physical Training for Boys. C. K. Taylor. C. K. & 
H. B. Taylor, Chestnut Hill, Pa. (Simple exercises 
requiring no apparatus, particularly planned 
for the use of boys.) 

The Mothers' Book. Caroline B. Burrell, Editor. 
The University Society, Inc., New York. (A 
valuable book on child-training for parents.) 

A List of Good Stories to Tell Children under Twelve 
Years of Age. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, 
Pa. (May be obtained from the library; price, 
5 cents.) 

The Vocational Guidance of Youth. Meyer Bloomfield. 
Riverside Educational Monographs. Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

Social Aspects of Education. Irving King. Mac- 
millan Co. 

Boys' Self-governing Clubs. Winifred Buck. Mac- 
millan Co. (Helpful chapters on the ethical 
lessons of the playground and of the business 
meeting.) 

How Two Hundred Children Live and Learn. Rudolph 
Reeder. Charities Publication Committee, N. Y. 



NOV 22 1913 



